tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62487144208575275742018-03-07T12:39:04.590-05:00this is me being realVos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.comBlogger670125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-54680733546697266272016-01-04T17:15:00.002-05:002017-10-25T17:49:30.340-04:002015.<div class="p1"><span class="s1"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">Christmas 2015...the best one yet.</span></span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">This Christmas letter is brought to you by the letter G and by the numbers 2 and 6.&nbsp; As I type Grant is holding down the couch, the 2nd to go down in what will surely become known as PukeFest 2015 and which, if history repeats, will strike all 6 with terrible ferocity before it’s end.&nbsp; It’s one of the perks of a large family: we literally share everything. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">I pray this letter finds your family well and anticipating Christmas.&nbsp; We Michiganders are in the grip of a record snow drought.&nbsp; It has left all the Smalls standing on the front porch, new sleds in hand, wearing flip flops and confused expressions.&nbsp; We are a stalwart bunch, ready to greet winter with gore-tex and mitten warmers only to have fall revisit again and again, a sort of seasonal Ground Hog Day.&nbsp; Maggie (3) is perhaps the only Vos who is in favor of global warming.&nbsp; She strung together her first two word sentence this fall at Peter’s LaCrosse tournament: I cold.&nbsp; She hasn’t stopped saying it since.&nbsp; That is why we are giving her brochures for retirement villages in Scottsdale AZ for Christmas.&nbsp; She’s an old soul, happiest with her slippers and sitting quietly on someone’s lap.&nbsp; She would make the perfect therapy dog.</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">I could spend the next two pages going on about the kid’s academic achievements and athletic prowess, painting for you the rosy picture of a perfect family and, well, that would be the funniest Christmas letter of them all.&nbsp; Because the truth of it is that it’s been kind of a wrecking year.&nbsp; One that’s left us gasping and straining to find grace and we are only now starting to feel our equilibrium come back.&nbsp; Abram was perfectly chosen for our family.&nbsp; Had he been placed with a small family of quiet intellectual introverts, they’d all be dead by now.&nbsp; Boy is loud and active and all the things we didn’t expect a boy in his health to be.&nbsp; Such a gift.&nbsp; Such a handful.&nbsp; He walks around the kitchen counters, hands feeling for all the things like some Asian Helen Keller.&nbsp; We sit, watching, a string of drool connecting us to our shirts and reminding the kids waiting in line for their homework to be checked that that’s what we pay their teachers for.&nbsp; Dinners are a joke.&nbsp; We will never again have a civilized family dinner in our lives.&nbsp; Never again.&nbsp; And don’t even get me started on the laundry.&nbsp; So we pick battles.&nbsp; Lucy walks out the door each morning looking like she’s been dressed by a blind gypsy, hair in a million directions, grinning a grin that reveals all her front teef are gone.&nbsp; Bless her.&nbsp; She has spent the last 6.6 years scripting our dialog, all her directives starting the same way, “and then you’re like...”.&nbsp; Which is why she and Abe are a perfect fit.&nbsp; He willingly enters into her world just to be one of the guys. &nbsp; And she allows him to stay as long as he takes direction well.&nbsp; Which, thankfully, he does. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">These Smalls, they have adjusted so well. We have added two to their number in 12 months and they just roll. &nbsp; And on days they can’t roll anymore, when none of us can, we leave the little guys in capable hands and take the four olders out for some two on four time, which is about as good as the ratio gets around here.&nbsp; We chew our food and linger over dessert and drive in the driveway refreshed and ready to enter into the madness again.&nbsp; And Dan and I escape for nights out, saying a quick prayer for the sitter and knowing we can never pay her enough to compensate for what she’ll go through for the next 5 or so hours.&nbsp; We return wearing stupid grins and with literature about tubal ligation to save her the time googling it. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">In reality, these kids are gold.&nbsp; They love each other well, most of the time, serve their younger siblings, most of the time and obey us when they feel like it.&nbsp; We shoot for 2 out of 3 in this life of lowered expectations.&nbsp; Our family is big and loud and free-range and we wouldn’t have it any other way.&nbsp; Except Dan.&nbsp; Sometimes I catch him staring far off and think maybe he’s dreaming of 2.5 children and a dog.&nbsp; But then he pulls Maggie up on his lap and holds her tight, working to decode her signs in the most patient of ways and I know he was made for this.&nbsp; We all were.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">Father has used our kids to teach us the most wrecking and beautiful lessons.&nbsp; They’ve shown us that needs revealed must become needs filled, without question, without hesitation.&nbsp; Just go.&nbsp; We stink at this so often, but He continues to work on it with us.&nbsp; We’ve watched them fly across the world, twice, to gather up their siblings and bring them home, even though it meant sharing rooms, toys, mom and dad.&nbsp; It’s bled into their everyday lives.&nbsp; Grant spends every spare moment he gets in the Special Needs room at his middle school, mentoring, tutoring, friending.&nbsp; It’s his work and he is passionate about it.&nbsp; And Peter, he shares a room with Abe and is woken often by his night terrors and even though we’ve put a sweet, soft bed up for him in another room, he choses to be there for his brother.&nbsp; Tess spends herself on Maggie’s behalf, playing with her, teaching her new signs, carrying her teeny self around perched on Tessie’s hip like her very own baby doll.&nbsp; And as we all settle in, Lucy has discovered that having littles she can boss around isn’t half bad.&nbsp; Most often they are her dogs, complete with yarn collars and leashes.&nbsp; She is the quintessential director and they the principal actors.&nbsp; Growing our family through adoption has taken us by storm and none of us will ever be the same, thank God.</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">Dan and I continue to labor side by side, as we raise this crew and find other work Father is calling us to.&nbsp; We feel a growing need to pour into his employees.&nbsp; They are dear to us.&nbsp; But we also are so wrecked for the orphan.&nbsp; China owns us, I think.&nbsp; And while we don’t anticipate adding to our numbers unless Father makes it really clear (burning bush), we feel a loud call to help others bring their children home.&nbsp; God has given us a soap box and we’re standing on it, sometimes with quivery, tired legs, but still standing.&nbsp; Standing until they are all home. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">And in the meantime we are here, raising our Smalls in the best way we know: with love and levity and exasperation all mixed up.&nbsp; The boys have become addicted to fishing, the girls to horses.&nbsp; The chickens continue to make us breakfast, bless them, and our insurance provider continues to look the other way as the kids jump on the tramp, zipline into the woods and launch themselves down the creek on boats hammered together of scrap wood and ingenuity.&nbsp; There are Perler beads permanently imbedded in the rug and wallpaper is peeling under the drinking fountain.&nbsp; These things bear witness to the life lived here.&nbsp; It is messy and beautiful and full, so very very full. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">We pray this Christmas season gives birth to another growing year for all of us.&nbsp; One in which we find ourselves wrecked for something after Jesus’ own heart. And as we worship King turned Baby so we could be called Daughter and Son, may we invite courage to add to our numbers, strength to overcome the dark of this temporary world and boldness to proclaim the truth that Jesus, and only Jesus, saves.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">Merriest of Christmases to you all.</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">`</span></div><br /><div class="p4"><span class="s1">Love, Dan, Megan, Grant, Peter, Tess, Lucy, Abe and Maggie (and 11 Kevins and a Keloid scar named Steve).</span></div>Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-85019791142152101492016-01-04T17:15:00.001-05:002016-01-04T17:15:14.615-05:002015.<div class="p1"><span class="s1"><span style="color: #38761d; font-size: large;">Christmas 2015...the best one yet.</span></span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">This Christmas letter is brought to you by the letter G and by the numbers 2 and 6.&nbsp; As I type Grant is holding down the couch, the 2nd to go down in what will surely become known as PukeFest 2015 and which, if history repeats, will strike all 6 with terrible ferocity before it’s end.&nbsp; It’s one of the perks of a large family: we literally share everything. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">I pray this letter finds your family well and anticipating Christmas.&nbsp; We Michiganders are in the grip of a record snow drought.&nbsp; It has left all the Smalls standing on the front porch, new sleds in hand, wearing flip flops and confused expressions.&nbsp; We are a stalwart bunch, ready to greet winter with gore-tex and mitten warmers only to have fall revisit again and again, a sort of seasonal Ground Hog Day.&nbsp; Maggie (3) is perhaps the only Vos who is in favor of global warming.&nbsp; She strung together her first two word sentence this fall at Peter’s LaCrosse tournament: I cold.&nbsp; She hasn’t stopped saying it since.&nbsp; That is why we are giving her brochures for retirement villages in Scottsdale AZ for Christmas.&nbsp; She’s an old soul, happiest with her slippers and sitting quietly on someone’s lap.&nbsp; She would make the perfect therapy dog.</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">I could spend the next two pages going on about the kid’s academic achievements and athletic prowess, painting for you the rosy picture of a perfect family and, well, that would be the funniest Christmas letter of them all.&nbsp; Because the truth of it is that it’s been kind of a wrecking year.&nbsp; One that’s left us gasping and straining to find grace and we are only now starting to feel our equilibrium come back.&nbsp; Abram was perfectly chosen for our family.&nbsp; Had he been placed with a small family of quiet intellectual introverts, they’d all be dead by now.&nbsp; Boy is loud and active and all the things we didn’t expect a boy in his health to be.&nbsp; Such a gift.&nbsp; Such a handful.&nbsp; He walks around the kitchen counters, hands feeling for all the things like some Asian Helen Keller.&nbsp; We sit, watching, a string of drool connecting us to our shirts and reminding the kids waiting in line for their homework to be checked that that’s what we pay their teachers for.&nbsp; Dinners are a joke.&nbsp; We will never again have a civilized family dinner in our lives.&nbsp; Never again.&nbsp; And don’t even get me started on the laundry.&nbsp; So we pick battles.&nbsp; Lucy walks out the door each morning looking like she’s been dressed by a blind gypsy, hair in a million directions, grinning a grin that reveals all her front teef are gone.&nbsp; Bless her.&nbsp; She has spent the last 6.6 years scripting our dialog, all her directives starting the same way, “and then you’re like...”.&nbsp; Which is why she and Abe are a perfect fit.&nbsp; He willingly enters into her world just to be one of the guys. &nbsp; And she allows him to stay as long as he takes direction well.&nbsp; Which, thankfully, he does. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">These Smalls, they have adjusted so well. We have added two to their number in 12 months and they just roll. &nbsp; And on days they can’t roll anymore, when none of us can, we leave the little guys in capable hands and take the four olders out for some two on four time, which is about as good as the ratio gets around here.&nbsp; We chew our food and linger over dessert and drive in the driveway refreshed and ready to enter into the madness again.&nbsp; And Dan and I escape for nights out, saying a quick prayer for the sitter and knowing we can never pay her enough to compensate for what she’ll go through for the next 5 or so hours.&nbsp; We return wearing stupid grins and with literature about tubal ligation to save her the time googling it. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">In reality, these kids are gold.&nbsp; They love each other well, most of the time, serve their younger siblings, most of the time and obey us when they feel like it.&nbsp; We shoot for 2 out of 3 in this life of lowered expectations.&nbsp; Our family is big and loud and free-range and we wouldn’t have it any other way.&nbsp; Except Dan.&nbsp; Sometimes I catch him staring far off and think maybe he’s dreaming of 2.5 children and a dog.&nbsp; But then he pulls Maggie up on his lap and holds her tight, working to decode her signs in the most patient of ways and I know he was made for this.&nbsp; We all were.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">Father has used our kids to teach us the most wrecking and beautiful lessons.&nbsp; They’ve shown us that needs revealed must become needs filled, without question, without hesitation.&nbsp; Just go.&nbsp; We stink at this so often, but He continues to work on it with us.&nbsp; We’ve watched them fly across the world, twice, to gather up their siblings and bring them home, even though it meant sharing rooms, toys, mom and dad.&nbsp; It’s bled into their everyday lives.&nbsp; Grant spends every spare moment he gets in the Special Needs room at his middle school, mentoring, tutoring, friending.&nbsp; It’s his work and he is passionate about it.&nbsp; And Peter, he shares a room with Abe and is woken often by his night terrors and even though we’ve put a sweet, soft bed up for him in another room, he choses to be there for his brother.&nbsp; Tess spends herself on Maggie’s behalf, playing with her, teaching her new signs, carrying her teeny self around perched on Tessie’s hip like her very own baby doll.&nbsp; And as we all settle in, Lucy has discovered that having littles she can boss around isn’t half bad.&nbsp; Most often they are her dogs, complete with yarn collars and leashes.&nbsp; She is the quintessential director and they the principal actors.&nbsp; Growing our family through adoption has taken us by storm and none of us will ever be the same, thank God.</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">Dan and I continue to labor side by side, as we raise this crew and find other work Father is calling us to.&nbsp; We feel a growing need to pour into his employees.&nbsp; They are dear to us.&nbsp; But we also are so wrecked for the orphan.&nbsp; China owns us, I think.&nbsp; And while we don’t anticipate adding to our numbers unless Father makes it really clear (burning bush), we feel a loud call to help others bring their children home.&nbsp; God has given us a soap box and we’re standing on it, sometimes with quivery, tired legs, but still standing.&nbsp; Standing until they are all home. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">And in the meantime we are here, raising our Smalls in the best way we know: with love and levity and exasperation all mixed up.&nbsp; The boys have become addicted to fishing, the girls to horses.&nbsp; The chickens continue to make us breakfast, bless them, and our insurance provider continues to look the other way as the kids jump on the tramp, zipline into the woods and launch themselves down the creek on boats hammered together of scrap wood and ingenuity.&nbsp; There are Perler beads permanently imbedded in the rug and wallpaper is peeling under the drinking fountain.&nbsp; These things bear witness to the life lived here.&nbsp; It is messy and beautiful and full, so very very full. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">We pray this Christmas season gives birth to another growing year for all of us.&nbsp; One in which we find ourselves wrecked for something after Jesus’ own heart. And as we worship King turned Baby so we could be called Daughter and Son, may we invite courage to add to our numbers, strength to overcome the dark of this temporary world and boldness to proclaim the truth that Jesus, and only Jesus, saves.</span></div><div class="p2"><span class="s1"></span><br /></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">Merriest of Christmases to you all.</span></div><div class="p3"><span class="s1">`</span></div><br /><div class="p4"><span class="s1">Love, Dan, Megan, Grant, Peter, Tess, Lucy, Abe and Maggie (and 11 Kevins and a Keloid scar named Steve).</span></div>Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-18221893623695842362015-12-05T11:05:00.001-05:002017-10-25T17:49:30.373-04:00survive.I pushed the Asians around Costco yesterday, pushing a cart full of embarrassment and 100 pounds of white rice because I just finished the book Lights Out by Ted Kopple or, as Dan calls it, That Ridiculous Book That's Making You Crazy. &nbsp;We used to watch the Nat Geo show Preppers just so we could laugh at them with their barrels full of oatmeal and their jury-rigged water catchment system on their backwoods plot of somewhere. &nbsp;And now suddenly they don't seem quite so boob-ish. &nbsp;Can we talk about this? &nbsp;The world, it is going haywire. &nbsp;Perhaps no more than it has the last 2,000 years, but still. &nbsp;And my thought that we'd just ride our lives out before things got really bad is starting to feel naive. &nbsp;Anne Graham Lotz (Reverend Billy Graham's daughter) believes we will see the second coming in our generation. &nbsp;She is prophesying this boldly and often. &nbsp;She is either a false prophet or the real deal, but either way, she heads up a large and growing body of people who believe the end is near. &nbsp;Wether you stand in her camp or not, you cannot ignore that the world outside our doors has become uncertain and scary and we are in possibly imminent danger of a cataclysmic event that will leave us hungry and scrambling. &nbsp;And I'm starting to think that it is foolish to not prepare at least a little.<br />Please hear me very clearly: We are not out to be the last people standing, not arming our family and running tactical training exercises to ensure that nothing breaches our bunker. &nbsp;This world doesn't hold our citizenship and we will not cling to it. &nbsp;But if something happens, I need to be able to feed my family until help arrives. To that end I'm laying in stores to feed and support my family for a month. &nbsp;Which is why I am buying 50 pound sacks of white rice and telling the checkers it's for a rice table for the little one's Christmas. &nbsp;That's a lie. &nbsp;I would rather chew off my arms than welcome that mess into my kitchen. &nbsp;I'm squirreling away for winter like an Ingalls: sugar, oatmeal, peanut butter, rice, beans and batteries. &nbsp;A hand crank radio and a source of water and perhaps a smidgen of chocolate. No guns, no hazmat suits, no camo tarps. &nbsp;Just enough to feed my crew until help arrives. &nbsp;It's less prepping and more just being smart. &nbsp;The internet is rife with conspiracy theories and scary what-ifs put out by some very interesting people. &nbsp;Don't read them. &nbsp;Don't google "surviving a power grid outage". &nbsp;You will crap your pants and then order four thousand dollars worth of stuff you probably don't need from Amazon, like a barrel of wheat berries and a hand grinder. &nbsp;Trust me, I almost did this. But don't be naive and think that you are immune either. &nbsp;Can you do me that solid? &nbsp;Can you at least lay in supplies to keep your family going for a month or two so that I feel better about the whole deal? <br />Jesus will win. &nbsp;That is truth we can take to the bank. I will not live in fear and won't feed that bitter pill to my Smalls, but I will be smart and prepare to care for them in the case of things going a little nutso for awhile. &nbsp;If it were just me, I'd probably drive to Schulers, lay down in the fiction section and wait for Jesus, but it's not just me and I won't sacrifice the well-being of my family to the fear of being thought odd. &nbsp;Better an ounce of prevention than a pound of cure, or something like that. &nbsp;Y'all are my family and I want you to be prepared, want to sit down with you post-whatever at Marie's for a Balsamic Salad and say, whew! That was a humdinger and if I never see another grain of rice again, it'll be too soon. &nbsp;Join me there? &nbsp;I'll save us a table.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;And obligated by the husband reading over my shoulder to tell you that he does not buy in, but as the world's greatest, most caring and generous man, has allowed me to ride the crazy bus for the lot of us, bankrolling far too many trips to Costco this week and shaking his head over the 2 cords of wood I had delivered yesterday. Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-63540295001537992732015-12-05T11:05:00.000-05:002015-12-05T11:05:14.956-05:00survive.I pushed the Asians around Costco yesterday, pushing a cart full of embarrassment and 100 pounds of white rice because I just finished the book Lights Out by Ted Kopple or, as Dan calls it, That Ridiculous Book That's Making You Crazy. &nbsp;We used to watch the Nat Geo show Preppers just so we could laugh at them with their barrels full of oatmeal and their jury-rigged water catchment system on their backwoods plot of somewhere. &nbsp;And now suddenly they don't seem quite so boob-ish. &nbsp;Can we talk about this? &nbsp;The world, it is going haywire. &nbsp;Perhaps no more than it has the last 2,000 years, but still. &nbsp;And my thought that we'd just ride our lives out before things got really bad is starting to feel naive. &nbsp;Anne Graham Lotz (Reverend Billy Graham's daughter) believes we will see the second coming in our generation. &nbsp;She is prophesying this boldly and often. &nbsp;She is either a false prophet or the real deal, but either way, she heads up a large and growing body of people who believe the end is near. &nbsp;Wether you stand in her camp or not, you cannot ignore that the world outside our doors has become uncertain and scary and we are in possibly imminent danger of a cataclysmic event that will leave us hungry and scrambling. &nbsp;And I'm starting to think that it is foolish to not prepare at least a little.<br />Please hear me very clearly: We are not out to be the last people standing, not arming our family and running tactical training exercises to ensure that nothing breaches our bunker. &nbsp;This world doesn't hold our citizenship and we will not cling to it. &nbsp;But if something happens, I need to be able to feed my family until help arrives. To that end I'm laying in stores to feed and support my family for a month. &nbsp;Which is why I am buying 50 pound sacks of white rice and telling the checkers it's for a rice table for the little one's Christmas. &nbsp;That's a lie. &nbsp;I would rather chew off my arms than welcome that mess into my kitchen. &nbsp;I'm squirreling away for winter like an Ingalls: sugar, oatmeal, peanut butter, rice, beans and batteries. &nbsp;A hand crank radio and a source of water and perhaps a smidgen of chocolate. No guns, no hazmat suits, no camo tarps. &nbsp;Just enough to feed my crew until help arrives. &nbsp;It's less prepping and more just being smart. &nbsp;The internet is rife with conspiracy theories and scary what-ifs put out by some very interesting people. &nbsp;Don't read them. &nbsp;Don't google "surviving a power grid outage". &nbsp;You will crap your pants and then order four thousand dollars worth of stuff you probably don't need from Amazon, like a barrel of wheat berries and a hand grinder. &nbsp;Trust me, I almost did this. But don't be naive and think that you are immune either. &nbsp;Can you do me that solid? &nbsp;Can you at least lay in supplies to keep your family going for a month or two so that I feel better about the whole deal? <br />Jesus will win. &nbsp;That is truth we can take to the bank. I will not live in fear and won't feed that bitter pill to my Smalls, but I will be smart and prepare to care for them in the case of things going a little nutso for awhile. &nbsp;If it were just me, I'd probably drive to Schulers, lay down in the fiction section and wait for Jesus, but it's not just me and I won't sacrifice the well-being of my family to the fear of being thought odd. &nbsp;Better an ounce of prevention than a pound of cure, or something like that. &nbsp;Y'all are my family and I want you to be prepared, want to sit down with you post-whatever at Marie's for a Balsamic Salad and say, whew! That was a humdinger and if I never see another grain of rice again, it'll be too soon. &nbsp;Join me there? &nbsp;I'll save us a table.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;And obligated by the husband reading over my shoulder to tell you that he does not buy in, but as the world's greatest, most caring and generous man, has allowed me to ride the crazy bus for the lot of us, bankrolling far too many trips to Costco this week and shaking his head over the 2 cords of wood I had delivered yesterday. Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-84558174825673596672015-09-20T23:38:00.001-04:002017-10-25T17:49:30.394-04:00colors.We are alive. &nbsp;I swear we are. &nbsp;Only we've been drowning in adjusting and bucket lists and now back to school. &nbsp;All summer I drank the lie that once the big kids got back in school I'd have time to write, but there are still the smallest Smalls and now no one to else to entertain them, to answer the million queries they throw at me all day, until 3:15 when Grant's bus pulls up and I fall on him like an addict, craving anything akin to adult conversation, while the littles continue to chirp around me like drunken Mina birds. &nbsp;I've never seen anything like it. &nbsp;We play the quiet game in the car and no one lasts past Go. &nbsp;I'm serious. &nbsp;They are horrible at the quiet game. &nbsp;And so we go to Target nearly every day because there is so much to see and other people to answer. &nbsp;Except Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings when they go to preschool. &nbsp;All the first time moms are still waving and taking pictures when I throw my two into their classrooms and burn rubber out of the parking lot. &nbsp;I am on the clock. &nbsp;I have 140 minutes in which to remind myself that I can do this. &nbsp;140 minutes in which to slow my breathing and not answer any questions. &nbsp;Some days I just sit in my car and read. &nbsp;Away is a beautiful place. &nbsp;But so is together, which is why I'm nearly always ready to collect them again and hop back on the crazy bus, Maggie saying Mama every three seconds and Abe, with his two modes: asleep and loud. &nbsp;They are my jam.<br />Back to school gets harder every year. &nbsp;The forms! &nbsp;The multiple checks written out for very small amounts, but never able to be added together in one convenient check! &nbsp;Why is this? &nbsp;The get to know you activities that involve brown paper bags and small object gleaned from around the house! &nbsp;And, for Lulu, first grade means spending the first two weeks celebrating colors. &nbsp;A different one each day. &nbsp;Wear it, bring it. &nbsp;By orange I've lost all will to live. &nbsp;We. &nbsp;Have. &nbsp;No. &nbsp;Orange. &nbsp;This is not an accident. &nbsp;There are certain colors I don't buy. &nbsp;Orange is one of them. &nbsp;Only 4 people in the world look good in orange and none of them lives here. &nbsp;And orange is closely followed by brown. &nbsp;I can't even. &nbsp;Last week on green day I laid out no fewer than 7 possibilities for her show and tell. &nbsp;It was a veritable buffet of green. &nbsp;She wanted none of them. &nbsp;Not even Peter's green LAX athletic supporter. &nbsp;And so she went to school with a soft guy who had a bit of green marker on his fur. &nbsp;This is no longer my problem. <br />Tessa has started the recorder. &nbsp;Peter has started the trumpet. &nbsp;Why do they hate me? &nbsp;I missed all five curriculum nights. &nbsp;If you miss one, you have to miss them all or they count it against you. &nbsp;The kids, they count it against you. &nbsp;Besides, with five different curriculum nights and Dan gone for 4 of them I either had to ditch or hire an au pair. &nbsp;It will probably be on our permanent record along with dismal attendance and Lucy's altered Kindergarten schedule. &nbsp;It'll probably mean my kids don't get into college, but we have attachment issues anyway, so college was always a long shot. And since college is a million years away, at least (shut up), I'm choosing not to think on it. &nbsp;Especially on a day like today when the sun shone so bright and we hopped on bikes and ending up very far away and loved nearly every second of it. &nbsp;And so I tucked 6 Smalls into bed tonight, sore legs and sweet smelling hair, gave them their blessings and said one of my own. &nbsp;Because these days, they threaten to eat me right up, but I'll take em because they were never promised to me. &nbsp;They are all grace given by a Father who sees our needs and fills us so full we nearly pop. &nbsp;A Father who bids us sit still for a sec in the midst of the madness and give thanks for these full days. &nbsp;A Father who meets us on the floor on those hard days when we've buckled under the weight and let our ugly leak out and who lays there with us while we have a good cry and then bids us back at it, to the work we've been called to. &nbsp;As completely mad as this season is, I find myself so thankful. &nbsp;Even if it is orange day tomorrow.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;And hoping an orange hair bow from halloween is good enough.Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-21379991643320912152015-09-20T23:38:00.000-04:002015-09-20T23:38:34.531-04:00colors.We are alive. &nbsp;I swear we are. &nbsp;Only we've been drowning in adjusting and bucket lists and now back to school. &nbsp;All summer I drank the lie that once the big kids got back in school I'd have time to write, but there are still the smallest Smalls and now no one to else to entertain them, to answer the million queries they throw at me all day, until 3:15 when Grant's bus pulls up and I fall on him like an addict, craving anything akin to adult conversation, while the littles continue to chirp around me like drunken Mina birds. &nbsp;I've never seen anything like it. &nbsp;We play the quiet game in the car and no one lasts past Go. &nbsp;I'm serious. &nbsp;They are horrible at the quiet game. &nbsp;And so we go to Target nearly every day because there is so much to see and other people to answer. &nbsp;Except Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings when they go to preschool. &nbsp;All the first time moms are still waving and taking pictures when I throw my two into their classrooms and burn rubber out of the parking lot. &nbsp;I am on the clock. &nbsp;I have 140 minutes in which to remind myself that I can do this. &nbsp;140 minutes in which to slow my breathing and not answer any questions. &nbsp;Some days I just sit in my car and read. &nbsp;Away is a beautiful place. &nbsp;But so is together, which is why I'm nearly always ready to collect them again and hop back on the crazy bus, Maggie saying Mama every three seconds and Abe, with his two modes: asleep and loud. &nbsp;They are my jam.<br />Back to school gets harder every year. &nbsp;The forms! &nbsp;The multiple checks written out for very small amounts, but never able to be added together in one convenient check! &nbsp;Why is this? &nbsp;The get to know you activities that involve brown paper bags and small object gleaned from around the house! &nbsp;And, for Lulu, first grade means spending the first two weeks celebrating colors. &nbsp;A different one each day. &nbsp;Wear it, bring it. &nbsp;By orange I've lost all will to live. &nbsp;We. &nbsp;Have. &nbsp;No. &nbsp;Orange. &nbsp;This is not an accident. &nbsp;There are certain colors I don't buy. &nbsp;Orange is one of them. &nbsp;Only 4 people in the world look good in orange and none of them lives here. &nbsp;And orange is closely followed by brown. &nbsp;I can't even. &nbsp;Last week on green day I laid out no fewer than 7 possibilities for her show and tell. &nbsp;It was a veritable buffet of green. &nbsp;She wanted none of them. &nbsp;Not even Peter's green LAX athletic supporter. &nbsp;And so she went to school with a soft guy who had a bit of green marker on his fur. &nbsp;This is no longer my problem. <br />Tessa has started the recorder. &nbsp;Peter has started the trumpet. &nbsp;Why do they hate me? &nbsp;I missed all five curriculum nights. &nbsp;If you miss one, you have to miss them all or they count it against you. &nbsp;The kids, they count it against you. &nbsp;Besides, with five different curriculum nights and Dan gone for 4 of them I either had to ditch or hire an au pair. &nbsp;It will probably be on our permanent record along with dismal attendance and Lucy's altered Kindergarten schedule. &nbsp;It'll probably mean my kids don't get into college, but we have attachment issues anyway, so college was always a long shot. And since college is a million years away, at least (shut up), I'm choosing not to think on it. &nbsp;Especially on a day like today when the sun shone so bright and we hopped on bikes and ending up very far away and loved nearly every second of it. &nbsp;And so I tucked 6 Smalls into bed tonight, sore legs and sweet smelling hair, gave them their blessings and said one of my own. &nbsp;Because these days, they threaten to eat me right up, but I'll take em because they were never promised to me. &nbsp;They are all grace given by a Father who sees our needs and fills us so full we nearly pop. &nbsp;A Father who bids us sit still for a sec in the midst of the madness and give thanks for these full days. &nbsp;A Father who meets us on the floor on those hard days when we've buckled under the weight and let our ugly leak out and who lays there with us while we have a good cry and then bids us back at it, to the work we've been called to. &nbsp;As completely mad as this season is, I find myself so thankful. &nbsp;Even if it is orange day tomorrow.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;And hoping an orange hair bow from halloween is good enough.Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-39860417132296968562015-05-16T21:27:00.002-04:002017-10-25T17:49:30.442-04:00snap.They are lined up on the shelf, or will be as soon as I get around to doing Lucy's. &nbsp;These albums with hard spines and shiny pages, chronicling their starts, my Smalls. &nbsp;Filled with glossy pictures of the days following their births, first encounters with siblings, grandparents, family, friends. &nbsp;My kids spend hours lying in sun puddles poring over these pictorial accounts of how it all went down and I never realized how precious those albums were until I had my China babies who lack them. &nbsp;No birth pictures, save a grainy black and white finding picture taken at the police station. &nbsp;No record of how their mama felt or who came to visit. &nbsp;No list of gifts given or weepy snaps of wonder filled faces seeing them for the first time. &nbsp;Just a one inch by one inch photo and an address of their finding spot. They come with nothing; literally the clothes on their backs. &nbsp;Maggie also had a rattle, all the little plastic pieces broken off so only the ring remained. <br />But adoption, if nothing else, is a redemption story. &nbsp;And so our birth pictures look like this:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OHZBi140Th0/VUGPTfpYIaI/AAAAAAAADjU/LlJT5itxAvU/s1600/IMG_0207.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OHZBi140Th0/VUGPTfpYIaI/AAAAAAAADjU/LlJT5itxAvU/s1600/IMG_0207.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3WwRkrcXTCU/VUGPTTxWVwI/AAAAAAAADjc/zINxLiI-KaE/s1600/IMG_0211.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3WwRkrcXTCU/VUGPTTxWVwI/AAAAAAAADjc/zINxLiI-KaE/s1600/IMG_0211.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vbDZgjaU_oA/VUGPULSbCeI/AAAAAAAADjY/aVRCiQNDD_o/s1600/IMG_3866.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vbDZgjaU_oA/VUGPULSbCeI/AAAAAAAADjY/aVRCiQNDD_o/s1600/IMG_3866.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eyHOdHeYl-s/VUGPVgm9QxI/AAAAAAAADjk/4zvfVqAA7G0/s1600/IMG_3892.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eyHOdHeYl-s/VUGPVgm9QxI/AAAAAAAADjk/4zvfVqAA7G0/s1600/IMG_3892.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>No stripey blankets to secretly steal because they swaddle so well. &nbsp;No balloons shaped like bears. &nbsp;Just us in a Chinese Government office becoming 7. &nbsp;What came before us will always be a part of her story. &nbsp;A vital part. &nbsp;And we will tell it to her. &nbsp;But her birth happened this day. &nbsp;And the day we walked off the airplane in Grand Rapids, MI and all our family and friends were waiting. &nbsp;That was her birth story too. &nbsp;And someday our China babies will wonder, of course they will wonder, if anyone ever really wanted them at all. &nbsp;They will be trying to make sense of the cruelty of being left and they will wonder and we will tell the story of their adoption birth and we will show them the pictures and we pray it helps them understand how very very much they were wanted.<br />Which is why I've asked a dear friend to photograph at the airport. &nbsp;Walking off to a crowd and a photog all feels a bit showy, no?, but please hear me on this: we want nothing to do with ticker tape parades or fanfare. &nbsp;We are deserving of neither, but are only simple sheep doing what our shepherd has bid us do. &nbsp;But we do desire, very much, to record that moment when everyone who has loved our China babies home, who has supported us and loved us and who have wanted Maggie and Abram to join the family finally lay eyes on them. &nbsp;And so we asked for professional pictures, not as a record of how brave/obedient/philanthropic we are, but as proof to them, to our China babies, that they are wanted. &nbsp;Nothing says that like a crowd of people waiting for a first peek. &nbsp;A family who cheers when they see you for the first time, running down that hallway. &nbsp;This, then, will their birth story. &nbsp;And I want to fill an album with it to join the others on the shelf, to be opened in a sun puddle, feet crossed and lips pursed. &nbsp;So if you join us at the airport, please know that you are sharing in Abram's birth story. &nbsp;If you have prayed him home, please join us and give him the gift of proof of his wanted-ness. Just get out of my way, please, until I have my girls in my arms.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;And challenging you that if photography is a gift for you, then offer your services to help an adopting family somewhere record their child's homecoming. &nbsp;It's a beautiful way to care for orphans and to give tangible proof to the redemption work that happens when a child becomes one less.Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-63830645887867152172015-05-16T21:27:00.001-04:002015-05-16T21:27:48.194-04:00snap.They are lined up on the shelf, or will be as soon as I get around to doing Lucy's. &nbsp;These albums with hard spines and shiny pages, chronicling their starts, my Smalls. &nbsp;Filled with glossy pictures of the days following their births, first encounters with siblings, grandparents, family, friends. &nbsp;My kids spend hours lying in sun puddles poring over these pictorial accounts of how it all went down and I never realized how precious those albums were until I had my China babies who lack them. &nbsp;No birth pictures, save a grainy black and white finding picture taken at the police station. &nbsp;No record of how their mama felt or who came to visit. &nbsp;No list of gifts given or weepy snaps of wonder filled faces seeing them for the first time. &nbsp;Just a one inch by one inch photo and an address of their finding spot. They come with nothing; literally the clothes on their backs. &nbsp;Maggie also had a rattle, all the little plastic pieces broken off so only the ring remained. <br />But adoption, if nothing else, is a redemption story. &nbsp;And so our birth pictures look like this:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OHZBi140Th0/VUGPTfpYIaI/AAAAAAAADjU/LlJT5itxAvU/s1600/IMG_0207.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OHZBi140Th0/VUGPTfpYIaI/AAAAAAAADjU/LlJT5itxAvU/s1600/IMG_0207.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3WwRkrcXTCU/VUGPTTxWVwI/AAAAAAAADjc/zINxLiI-KaE/s1600/IMG_0211.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3WwRkrcXTCU/VUGPTTxWVwI/AAAAAAAADjc/zINxLiI-KaE/s1600/IMG_0211.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vbDZgjaU_oA/VUGPULSbCeI/AAAAAAAADjY/aVRCiQNDD_o/s1600/IMG_3866.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vbDZgjaU_oA/VUGPULSbCeI/AAAAAAAADjY/aVRCiQNDD_o/s1600/IMG_3866.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eyHOdHeYl-s/VUGPVgm9QxI/AAAAAAAADjk/4zvfVqAA7G0/s1600/IMG_3892.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eyHOdHeYl-s/VUGPVgm9QxI/AAAAAAAADjk/4zvfVqAA7G0/s1600/IMG_3892.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>No stripey blankets to secretly steal because they swaddle so well. &nbsp;No balloons shaped like bears. &nbsp;Just us in a Chinese Government office becoming 7. &nbsp;What came before us will always be a part of her story. &nbsp;A vital part. &nbsp;And we will tell it to her. &nbsp;But her birth happened this day. &nbsp;And the day we walked off the airplane in Grand Rapids, MI and all our family and friends were waiting. &nbsp;That was her birth story too. &nbsp;And someday our China babies will wonder, of course they will wonder, if anyone ever really wanted them at all. &nbsp;They will be trying to make sense of the cruelty of being left and they will wonder and we will tell the story of their adoption birth and we will show them the pictures and we pray it helps them understand how very very much they were wanted.<br />Which is why I've asked a dear friend to photograph at the airport. &nbsp;Walking off to a crowd and a photog all feels a bit showy, no?, but please hear me on this: we want nothing to do with ticker tape parades or fanfare. &nbsp;We are deserving of neither, but are only simple sheep doing what our shepherd has bid us do. &nbsp;But we do desire, very much, to record that moment when everyone who has loved our China babies home, who has supported us and loved us and who have wanted Maggie and Abram to join the family finally lay eyes on them. &nbsp;And so we asked for professional pictures, not as a record of how brave/obedient/philanthropic we are, but as proof to them, to our China babies, that they are wanted. &nbsp;Nothing says that like a crowd of people waiting for a first peek. &nbsp;A family who cheers when they see you for the first time, running down that hallway. &nbsp;This, then, will their birth story. &nbsp;And I want to fill an album with it to join the others on the shelf, to be opened in a sun puddle, feet crossed and lips pursed. &nbsp;So if you join us at the airport, please know that you are sharing in Abram's birth story. &nbsp;If you have prayed him home, please join us and give him the gift of proof of his wanted-ness. Just get out of my way, please, until I have my girls in my arms.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;And challenging you that if photography is a gift for you, then offer your services to help an adopting family somewhere record their child's homecoming. &nbsp;It's a beautiful way to care for orphans and to give tangible proof to the redemption work that happens when a child becomes one less.Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-89664584568825744172015-04-29T22:44:00.002-04:002017-10-25T17:49:30.470-04:00fly.<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We leave day after tomorrow. &nbsp;I can hardly type it. &nbsp;The suitcases are bulging with everything we could possibly need for the next two weeks. &nbsp;Which means we've probably forgotten something really important like underwear or deodorant. &nbsp;But none of that will matter as long as we have our boy. &nbsp;</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Flying away from my girls will be the hardest hard. &nbsp;My beautiful sister wrote this to me, "It is a very hard and very good thing you are doing, and you can't do the good without engaging the hard, and that must cause you pain." &nbsp;It does indeed. &nbsp;I have found myself watching my girls this week and crying silent tears at&nbsp;the thought of flying away from them. &nbsp;It seemed easier when we were leaving all three, but it's clear Maggie needs to come and it's just too darn expensive to take them all. &nbsp;China is not for the faint of heart and they've been once. &nbsp;They have wonderful babysitters and a Nana and Papa who have strict instructions to rest up so they can be ON when we land. &nbsp;We will need their help more than ever when we get home. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Friday morning we fly to Chicago, to Beijing&nbsp;and then to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. &nbsp;It's about 24 hours of travel and with Peter and Maggie both sick as dogs right now, we could really use some prayer coverage. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Sometime on Monday, May 4, XingYou Chen will be brought to our hotel and given to us. &nbsp;The next day he will officially become Abram XingYou Vos. &nbsp;We will stay in Hohhot until Friday morning when we'll fly to Guangzhou for the rest of our time. &nbsp;Medical exam will take&nbsp;place on Saturday with our consulate appt on Tuesday morning. &nbsp;On Wednesday afternoon we will be given Abram's Visa and will be free to leave. &nbsp;We will fly to Beijing late Weds and then home via San Francisco and Chicago on Thursday the 14th. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We need you, prayer warriors. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~This trip is taxing at best, a bit of a killer with young kids. &nbsp;Maggie is a wild card. &nbsp;Pray she feels well as she is a cuss when she's sick. &nbsp;In fact, will you pray for health for all of us, including Lulu and Tess?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~Pray for our goodbyes on Friday. &nbsp;I can't even. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~Pray for our girls&nbsp;being left home. &nbsp;For their tender hearts&nbsp;and that the time speeds by&nbsp;until we are together.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~Pray that the seeds of adoption will be sown as we share our journey with whoever is crazy enough to listen. &nbsp;This is work we are all called to do if we claim to follow Jesus, this caring for orphans work. &nbsp;Pray it gets done.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~Pray for unity for Dan and I. &nbsp;That this bring us even closer together. &nbsp;That satan's hand is stayed as he seeks to break us down in myriad ways.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~Pray for our Abram boy. &nbsp; That his heart will be prepared for the incredible upset he is about to face. &nbsp;He has known such loss already, ask Father to heal his heart as he knits him into our family.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Thank you, dear ones, for your support. &nbsp;It means the world to us. &nbsp;We are terrified&nbsp;and anxious and thrilled and a million other things all rolled up. &nbsp;Bless you for putting up with that mess.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This is me being real. &nbsp;Pretty positive Maggie has been unpacking things over the last few weeks and squirreling them away in places I'll find when the kids move out. &nbsp;Please let it not be perishable of expensive.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-64403915825307755222015-04-29T22:44:00.001-04:002015-04-29T22:44:29.448-04:00fly.<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We leave day after tomorrow. &nbsp;I can hardly type it. &nbsp;The suitcases are bulging with everything we could possibly need for the next two weeks. &nbsp;Which means we've probably forgotten something really important like underwear or deodorant. &nbsp;But none of that will matter as long as we have our boy. &nbsp;</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Flying away from my girls will be the hardest hard. &nbsp;My beautiful sister wrote this to me, "It is a very hard and very good thing you are doing, and you can't do the good without engaging the hard, and that must cause you pain." &nbsp;It does indeed. &nbsp;I have found myself watching my girls this week and crying silent tears at&nbsp;the thought of flying away from them. &nbsp;It seemed easier when we were leaving all three, but it's clear Maggie needs to come and it's just too darn expensive to take them all. &nbsp;China is not for the faint of heart and they've been once. &nbsp;They have wonderful babysitters and a Nana and Papa who have strict instructions to rest up so they can be ON when we land. &nbsp;We will need their help more than ever when we get home. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Friday morning we fly to Chicago, to Beijing&nbsp;and then to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. &nbsp;It's about 24 hours of travel and with Peter and Maggie both sick as dogs right now, we could really use some prayer coverage. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Sometime on Monday, May 4, XingYou Chen will be brought to our hotel and given to us. &nbsp;The next day he will officially become Abram XingYou Vos. &nbsp;We will stay in Hohhot until Friday morning when we'll fly to Guangzhou for the rest of our time. &nbsp;Medical exam will take&nbsp;place on Saturday with our consulate appt on Tuesday morning. &nbsp;On Wednesday afternoon we will be given Abram's Visa and will be free to leave. &nbsp;We will fly to Beijing late Weds and then home via San Francisco and Chicago on Thursday the 14th. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We need you, prayer warriors. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~This trip is taxing at best, a bit of a killer with young kids. &nbsp;Maggie is a wild card. &nbsp;Pray she feels well as she is a cuss when she's sick. &nbsp;In fact, will you pray for health for all of us, including Lulu and Tess?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~Pray for our goodbyes on Friday. &nbsp;I can't even. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~Pray for our girls&nbsp;being left home. &nbsp;For their tender hearts&nbsp;and that the time speeds by&nbsp;until we are together.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~Pray that the seeds of adoption will be sown as we share our journey with whoever is crazy enough to listen. &nbsp;This is work we are all called to do if we claim to follow Jesus, this caring for orphans work. &nbsp;Pray it gets done.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~Pray for unity for Dan and I. &nbsp;That this bring us even closer together. &nbsp;That satan's hand is stayed as he seeks to break us down in myriad ways.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~Pray for our Abram boy. &nbsp; That his heart will be prepared for the incredible upset he is about to face. &nbsp;He has known such loss already, ask Father to heal his heart as he knits him into our family.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Thank you, dear ones, for your support. &nbsp;It means the world to us. &nbsp;We are terrified&nbsp;and anxious and thrilled and a million other things all rolled up. &nbsp;Bless you for putting up with that mess.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This is me being real. &nbsp;Pretty positive Maggie has been unpacking things over the last few weeks and squirreling them away in places I'll find when the kids move out. &nbsp;Please let it not be perishable of expensive.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></div>Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-31449529322633464912015-04-21T22:55:00.001-04:002017-10-25T17:49:30.491-04:00soon.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vUAUmTI0k28/VTcImBUYUGI/AAAAAAAADjE/EYJ4CA7vsPc/s1600/Chen%2BXing%2BYou%2Bin%2BMarch-001%2B(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vUAUmTI0k28/VTcImBUYUGI/AAAAAAAADjE/EYJ4CA7vsPc/s1600/Chen%2BXing%2BYou%2Bin%2BMarch-001%2B(1).JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This boy. &nbsp;He has no idea what is about to hit him. &nbsp;No idea that in a few short weeks, Lord willing, he will be orphan no more. &nbsp;That he'll belong to two bros and three sisters and 20 Kevins and a Keloid scar named Steve. &nbsp;And a mom who defrosts Lucy's hot dogs in baggies in her arm pits while making everyone's lunches. &nbsp;He has no idea the chaos and beauty and sheer lunacy that is this family. &nbsp;That we regularly drag our kids to Ann Arbor just to buy peanut butter and popcorn, that laundry gets cleaned but not folded, that there are more toys in the yard than in the garage most days, despite ridiculous threats.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Y'all, we might be two weeks away from having him in our arms, his chubby cheeked, curly lipped self (yes mom, he does sort of look like Grant. &nbsp;Sort of.) &nbsp;Father is throwing open doors and showing me once again that my trust is barely enough to keep my lips above water and yet, his hand, it's always there, pulling me away from the abyss of my doubt. &nbsp;I told my sister this week I feel like a remedial student in trust school. &nbsp;Totally failing that class most days. &nbsp;Laying in bed, wondering if Father will answer the big prayer to get us there in time for his birthday on May 7, doubting wether all the pieces will fall in. &nbsp;And if they don't? &nbsp;Father will still be on his throne. &nbsp;Because the delivery part is not my deal, just the go part. &nbsp;So I'm packing like a madwoman. &nbsp;Thinking and over thinking how many NoGii bars and Aldi's dark chocolate and beef sticks these people of mine need to survive another China trip. &nbsp;Wether he'll need pull-ups. &nbsp;If his buns are squishy and how soon it'll be before I feel comfortable giving them a little squeeze. &nbsp;Whether his eyes are the same black as his sisters and how they'll get along. &nbsp;How long it will take to hear him say mama and how badly it'll wreck me. &nbsp;If my girls will survive two weeks without us and how wicked sad I'll be to give them some last sugar before I head to the airport. &nbsp;Oh my stars, can't imagine walking away from their sweet selves. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">But there is this: our boys needs us and I would move heaven and earth for any of my children, Chen XingYou being no exception. &nbsp;And so we'll pack twenty deodarants for the orphanage workers (don't judge me) and we will buy our plane tickets in lieu of taking the kids on a smashing vacation this summer and we will walk away from two people we love most in the this world, leaving them in such capable hands, to go and redeem another that we love most. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Because we have been called for such as him. &nbsp;Cannot wait. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">So we wait for our Travel Approval to be issued. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And you'll know when it happens because we will be shouting it from the rooftops. &nbsp;Us and the Smalls, who keep reminding me that this is family work by their eager anticipation and, in Lu's case at least, their sometimes funky moods as they get less than all of me, my mind split in seventeen hundred million different directions over seven thousand miles. &nbsp;This is family work.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is me being real. &nbsp;Admitting to you that I sent Dan to take the kids out to dinner even though I already had flank steak marinating in the fridge simply because I needed to hear myself think for one hour. &nbsp;Admitting that one hour was woefully inadequate, but happy to see them run through my back door anyway. &nbsp;Can't wait till those 5 become 6. &nbsp;Slightly terrified of when those 5 become 6. &nbsp;Just being real.</div><br />Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-55740615200818619382015-04-21T22:55:00.000-04:002015-04-21T22:55:25.858-04:00soon.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vUAUmTI0k28/VTcImBUYUGI/AAAAAAAADjE/EYJ4CA7vsPc/s1600/Chen%2BXing%2BYou%2Bin%2BMarch-001%2B(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vUAUmTI0k28/VTcImBUYUGI/AAAAAAAADjE/EYJ4CA7vsPc/s1600/Chen%2BXing%2BYou%2Bin%2BMarch-001%2B(1).JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This boy. &nbsp;He has no idea what is about to hit him. &nbsp;No idea that in a few short weeks, Lord willing, he will be orphan no more. &nbsp;That he'll belong to two bros and three sisters and 20 Kevins and a Keloid scar named Steve. &nbsp;And a mom who defrosts Lucy's hot dogs in baggies in her arm pits while making everyone's lunches. &nbsp;He has no idea the chaos and beauty and sheer lunacy that is this family. &nbsp;That we regularly drag our kids to Ann Arbor just to buy peanut butter and popcorn, that laundry gets cleaned but not folded, that there are more toys in the yard than in the garage most days, despite ridiculous threats.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Y'all, we might be two weeks away from having him in our arms, his chubby cheeked, curly lipped self (yes mom, he does sort of look like Grant. &nbsp;Sort of.) &nbsp;Father is throwing open doors and showing me once again that my trust is barely enough to keep my lips above water and yet, his hand, it's always there, pulling me away from the abyss of my doubt. &nbsp;I told my sister this week I feel like a remedial student in trust school. &nbsp;Totally failing that class most days. &nbsp;Laying in bed, wondering if Father will answer the big prayer to get us there in time for his birthday on May 7, doubting wether all the pieces will fall in. &nbsp;And if they don't? &nbsp;Father will still be on his throne. &nbsp;Because the delivery part is not my deal, just the go part. &nbsp;So I'm packing like a madwoman. &nbsp;Thinking and over thinking how many NoGii bars and Aldi's dark chocolate and beef sticks these people of mine need to survive another China trip. &nbsp;Wether he'll need pull-ups. &nbsp;If his buns are squishy and how soon it'll be before I feel comfortable giving them a little squeeze. &nbsp;Whether his eyes are the same black as his sisters and how they'll get along. &nbsp;How long it will take to hear him say mama and how badly it'll wreck me. &nbsp;If my girls will survive two weeks without us and how wicked sad I'll be to give them some last sugar before I head to the airport. &nbsp;Oh my stars, can't imagine walking away from their sweet selves. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">But there is this: our boys needs us and I would move heaven and earth for any of my children, Chen XingYou being no exception. &nbsp;And so we'll pack twenty deodarants for the orphanage workers (don't judge me) and we will buy our plane tickets in lieu of taking the kids on a smashing vacation this summer and we will walk away from two people we love most in the this world, leaving them in such capable hands, to go and redeem another that we love most. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Because we have been called for such as him. &nbsp;Cannot wait. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">So we wait for our Travel Approval to be issued. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And you'll know when it happens because we will be shouting it from the rooftops. &nbsp;Us and the Smalls, who keep reminding me that this is family work by their eager anticipation and, in Lu's case at least, their sometimes funky moods as they get less than all of me, my mind split in seventeen hundred million different directions over seven thousand miles. &nbsp;This is family work.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is me being real. &nbsp;Admitting to you that I sent Dan to take the kids out to dinner even though I already had flank steak marinating in the fridge simply because I needed to hear myself think for one hour. &nbsp;Admitting that one hour was woefully inadequate, but happy to see them run through my back door anyway. &nbsp;Can't wait till those 5 become 6. &nbsp;Slightly terrified of when those 5 become 6. &nbsp;Just being real.</div><br />Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-90304103897425094122015-03-30T13:17:00.003-04:002017-10-25T17:49:30.510-04:00onward.We are coming off a couple rough weeks here. &nbsp;I spent one whole nap time a day last week crying on the couch. &nbsp;Crying and praying and reading my Bible and swearing I couldn't do this another second and then feeling Father assure me that I, in fact, could. &nbsp;It's just been hard. &nbsp;Hard, y'all. &nbsp;This girl, she's the world's teeniest terrorist and sometimes we think she was sent here to undo us. &nbsp;She controls us from her chair, set high on the counter, pointing at things faster than we can retrieve them and not really wanting them anyway once we do. &nbsp;And just when we think we've got this bonding thing nailed, she gets sick or we go away for dinner or something and we realize again what complete idiots we are. &nbsp;What utter dolts. &nbsp;We know nothing. &nbsp;She is king. &nbsp;We are her serfs. &nbsp;All bets are off with this one. &nbsp;A wise woman once likened three year olds to drunken bipolar trolls. &nbsp;Yes. &nbsp;Add in inability to speak and the incredible adjustment from a life of neglect and near starvation to a totally foreign family and I think we're getting close. <br />This baby, we love her so much. &nbsp;I ache with it. &nbsp;She spent the better part of last month mourning something. &nbsp;Our five day escape? &nbsp;Some hurt of her past, just remembered? &nbsp;We'll never know. &nbsp;But she reacted fiercely, holding her food in her mouth for hours, refusing to swallow and losing two whole pounds, while I stood for hours by her chair, trying to coax her favorite foods down, tears rolling down my cheeks, growing angry and sad and hopeless in turns. &nbsp;And she wants nothing to do with daddy in those sad times. &nbsp;Wants only to be held by me, which is beautiful, but sometimes threatens to suck the life right out of me. &nbsp;I lost count of how many times I tripped over her in those weeks, her needing always to be 3 centimeters close, always. &nbsp;I shut the door of the bathroom, desperate for 5 minutes of solitude, only to open it minutes later and find her standing, silently, on the other side, self soothing, right arm rubbing left elbow, rubbing head. &nbsp;It's her safe place, that rub. &nbsp;And half of me wants to scream while the other half wants to cry with her. &nbsp;She has been hurt. &nbsp;There's no question of that. &nbsp;Our baby has been hurt bad and we are only beginning to help her heal.<br />And I'll be real, since it's sort of my thing, and say that in my ugly moments I have looked at this child, whose progress seems so slow, who demands the lions share of my time and energy, I have looked on her with ugly resentment. &nbsp;She has cost us so much time, money, energy. &nbsp;We have given her everything. &nbsp;And so a couple weeks ago, I collapsed on the couch after watching her refuse another meal, after laying her down with blankie and George and telling her I loved her. &nbsp;I collapsed, wailing to Father. &nbsp;I felt the need to remind him of all we've been through in the past 10 months. &nbsp;Of how I have four other children who need me and a husband too and how I used to be able to pour myself out outside the realm of therapy and doctors appointments and bonding exercises. &nbsp;I helped him recall how much we have given to bring her home and graft her in, because surely he'd forgotten. &nbsp;And as I lay there, I heard my Father remind me, gently, always gently, "Beloved, those things were never yours to begin with. &nbsp;Not the time, not the money, not even your very life. &nbsp;Never yours." <br />And it's been a game changer. &nbsp;This remembering that Father calls us to pour ourselves out on behalf of others, that our time, our resources, our very lives are not ours but belong to the one who will direct them for his purposes if we will only ask and listen. &nbsp;And it won't be a rose garden, you can take that to the bank. &nbsp;It'll be ugly and hard and it'll break you, but I'd rather take a day in the hard of Father's Kingdom work than a year chasing my own dreams because that'll leave me emptier than when I started. &nbsp;I've spent many years doing that. &nbsp;Do it still, often. <br />It's a hard line to toe, this adoption stuff. &nbsp;It's so important to me to be real about it. &nbsp;To not paint the picture that grafting a hurt child into your life will be all unicorns and rainbows, but also to not scare people away from this work. &nbsp;It's the best thing we've ever done. &nbsp;The hardest, most exhausting, best thing we've ever done. &nbsp;Maggie has changed us, all of us and we will never be the same. &nbsp;She has given us far far more than she has taken, has wrecked us in the best ways. &nbsp;And all the things we've given her? &nbsp;They were never ours to keep. &nbsp;The things we are most reluctant to let go are the things Father bids us give. &nbsp;For me it's been my time. &nbsp;It's the hardest gift, the one I most resent having wrestled out of my greedy hands. &nbsp; And Father, in his great mercy, has given me her nap time. &nbsp;Two hours every day where I can find rest for my soul and body. &nbsp;Because that's vital too. &nbsp;If you're going to pour yourself out, you must make time to be refilled. &nbsp;And somehow, miraculously, though sometimes I feel I've poured myself all out, there is always more. &nbsp;Not because I'm enough, but because he is. &nbsp;And so I wander through these days wondering how in hades I'll have time for one more, but knowing that the Father who has placed all these Smalls in our home will provide what we need to parent them. &nbsp;All and more, because he is gracious and kind and enough. &nbsp;There will be days when I forget that, happens all the time, but I'm asking him to boost my memory and break me in whatever way I need to be broken so that his precious work becomes my precious work. &nbsp;And give me grace to do it with a right heart. &nbsp;At least most of the time. &nbsp;And while I'm waiting for those things, could we talk about perhaps miraculously solving the problems of toothpaste in the sink and why no one can seem to hang up their coats? &nbsp;Can we solve those at least? &nbsp;Because sometimes I think my sanity hangs on them. &nbsp;Yours?<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;Smirking over poor Lulu who, upon seeing a flyer in the mail for our adoption agency, sweet little available faces all over it, sighed "We're never gonna get a dog, are we?" &nbsp;Prolly not Junebug. &nbsp;20 Kevins, a bearded dragon who long to be a carnivore but must be a flexitarian, 6 Smalls and a keloid scar named Steve...my cup is full.Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-19569621953532947102015-03-30T13:17:00.002-04:002015-03-30T13:17:44.130-04:00onward.We are coming off a couple rough weeks here. &nbsp;I spent one whole nap time a day last week crying on the couch. &nbsp;Crying and praying and reading my Bible and swearing I couldn't do this another second and then feeling Father assure me that I, in fact, could. &nbsp;It's just been hard. &nbsp;Hard, y'all. &nbsp;This girl, she's the world's teeniest terrorist and sometimes we think she was sent here to undo us. &nbsp;She controls us from her chair, set high on the counter, pointing at things faster than we can retrieve them and not really wanting them anyway once we do. &nbsp;And just when we think we've got this bonding thing nailed, she gets sick or we go away for dinner or something and we realize again what complete idiots we are. &nbsp;What utter dolts. &nbsp;We know nothing. &nbsp;She is king. &nbsp;We are her serfs. &nbsp;All bets are off with this one. &nbsp;A wise woman once likened three year olds to drunken bipolar trolls. &nbsp;Yes. &nbsp;Add in inability to speak and the incredible adjustment from a life of neglect and near starvation to a totally foreign family and I think we're getting close. <br />This baby, we love her so much. &nbsp;I ache with it. &nbsp;She spent the better part of last month mourning something. &nbsp;Our five day escape? &nbsp;Some hurt of her past, just remembered? &nbsp;We'll never know. &nbsp;But she reacted fiercely, holding her food in her mouth for hours, refusing to swallow and losing two whole pounds, while I stood for hours by her chair, trying to coax her favorite foods down, tears rolling down my cheeks, growing angry and sad and hopeless in turns. &nbsp;And she wants nothing to do with daddy in those sad times. &nbsp;Wants only to be held by me, which is beautiful, but sometimes threatens to suck the life right out of me. &nbsp;I lost count of how many times I tripped over her in those weeks, her needing always to be 3 centimeters close, always. &nbsp;I shut the door of the bathroom, desperate for 5 minutes of solitude, only to open it minutes later and find her standing, silently, on the other side, self soothing, right arm rubbing left elbow, rubbing head. &nbsp;It's her safe place, that rub. &nbsp;And half of me wants to scream while the other half wants to cry with her. &nbsp;She has been hurt. &nbsp;There's no question of that. &nbsp;Our baby has been hurt bad and we are only beginning to help her heal.<br />And I'll be real, since it's sort of my thing, and say that in my ugly moments I have looked at this child, whose progress seems so slow, who demands the lions share of my time and energy, I have looked on her with ugly resentment. &nbsp;She has cost us so much time, money, energy. &nbsp;We have given her everything. &nbsp;And so a couple weeks ago, I collapsed on the couch after watching her refuse another meal, after laying her down with blankie and George and telling her I loved her. &nbsp;I collapsed, wailing to Father. &nbsp;I felt the need to remind him of all we've been through in the past 10 months. &nbsp;Of how I have four other children who need me and a husband too and how I used to be able to pour myself out outside the realm of therapy and doctors appointments and bonding exercises. &nbsp;I helped him recall how much we have given to bring her home and graft her in, because surely he'd forgotten. &nbsp;And as I lay there, I heard my Father remind me, gently, always gently, "Beloved, those things were never yours to begin with. &nbsp;Not the time, not the money, not even your very life. &nbsp;Never yours." <br />And it's been a game changer. &nbsp;This remembering that Father calls us to pour ourselves out on behalf of others, that our time, our resources, our very lives are not ours but belong to the one who will direct them for his purposes if we will only ask and listen. &nbsp;And it won't be a rose garden, you can take that to the bank. &nbsp;It'll be ugly and hard and it'll break you, but I'd rather take a day in the hard of Father's Kingdom work than a year chasing my own dreams because that'll leave me emptier than when I started. &nbsp;I've spent many years doing that. &nbsp;Do it still, often. <br />It's a hard line to toe, this adoption stuff. &nbsp;It's so important to me to be real about it. &nbsp;To not paint the picture that grafting a hurt child into your life will be all unicorns and rainbows, but also to not scare people away from this work. &nbsp;It's the best thing we've ever done. &nbsp;The hardest, most exhausting, best thing we've ever done. &nbsp;Maggie has changed us, all of us and we will never be the same. &nbsp;She has given us far far more than she has taken, has wrecked us in the best ways. &nbsp;And all the things we've given her? &nbsp;They were never ours to keep. &nbsp;The things we are most reluctant to let go are the things Father bids us give. &nbsp;For me it's been my time. &nbsp;It's the hardest gift, the one I most resent having wrestled out of my greedy hands. &nbsp; And Father, in his great mercy, has given me her nap time. &nbsp;Two hours every day where I can find rest for my soul and body. &nbsp;Because that's vital too. &nbsp;If you're going to pour yourself out, you must make time to be refilled. &nbsp;And somehow, miraculously, though sometimes I feel I've poured myself all out, there is always more. &nbsp;Not because I'm enough, but because he is. &nbsp;And so I wander through these days wondering how in hades I'll have time for one more, but knowing that the Father who has placed all these Smalls in our home will provide what we need to parent them. &nbsp;All and more, because he is gracious and kind and enough. &nbsp;There will be days when I forget that, happens all the time, but I'm asking him to boost my memory and break me in whatever way I need to be broken so that his precious work becomes my precious work. &nbsp;And give me grace to do it with a right heart. &nbsp;At least most of the time. &nbsp;And while I'm waiting for those things, could we talk about perhaps miraculously solving the problems of toothpaste in the sink and why no one can seem to hang up their coats? &nbsp;Can we solve those at least? &nbsp;Because sometimes I think my sanity hangs on them. &nbsp;Yours?<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;Smirking over poor Lulu who, upon seeing a flyer in the mail for our adoption agency, sweet little available faces all over it, sighed "We're never gonna get a dog, are we?" &nbsp;Prolly not Junebug. &nbsp;20 Kevins, a bearded dragon who long to be a carnivore but must be a flexitarian, 6 Smalls and a keloid scar named Steve...my cup is full.Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-11695105805147941272015-02-10T06:53:00.003-05:002017-10-25T17:49:30.531-04:00three.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k9G83rpatLI/VNnxNqTqB5I/AAAAAAAADiQ/1AuKzvLvBjs/s1600/IMG_4227.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k9G83rpatLI/VNnxNqTqB5I/AAAAAAAADiQ/1AuKzvLvBjs/s1600/IMG_4227.JPG" height="400" width="400" /></a></div><br />Dear Birth Mother, our baby turned three yesterday. &nbsp;Only we pretended it was Sunday because she can't read a calendar yet and it just worked better. &nbsp;I watched her opening presents, dressed in the pink satin dress we bought her on Shamian Island, big gold bow in her hair, teeny gold ballet slippers on her feet and I ached. &nbsp;This baby, we love her so, but her being here with us means you've suffered greatly, have sacrificed much. &nbsp;I know that now. &nbsp;Whatever circumstances led you to the choice you made to leave her, it must have ripped you up. &nbsp;And, so, these early days of February must be made of sadness and longing for you. &nbsp;I thought that while I watched our girl signing 'thank you' for her presents, thought it while she dug into her chocolate chocolate cake, thought it watching gift after gift involve her beloved emms; everyone knows her so well. &nbsp;Everyone except the one who conceived and grew her. &nbsp;She is beautiful, this baby. &nbsp;She is somber, smiling only when really tickled, laughing only when it's hard-won, but she is happy, still. &nbsp;I know that. &nbsp;She is adored by her sisters and brothers. &nbsp;They dote on her, laughing at her smallest antics. &nbsp;God has used her to break them and us for the orphan. &nbsp;That's the most beautiful gift she's given us. &nbsp;This baby, she is healthy. &nbsp;Her palate is repaired, she can eat anything (but won't because she's a stinker), she runs, she is learning to make sounds and using her hands to speak to us when her mouth fails her. &nbsp;She lacks for nothing, I promise that. &nbsp;I held her this morning and whispered to her of you. &nbsp;This baby we have birthed, you and I, she blesses me. &nbsp;Raising her is a relay race and your leg is over, but you ran it well. &nbsp;You carried her, labored for her, birthed her, loved her enough to let her go. &nbsp;You are valiant. &nbsp;Her foster mother ran her leg and it was brutal, but it made our girl strong, birthed in her a fighting spirit. &nbsp;Now it's my leg and I'm running hard, with this baby we share. &nbsp;But I want you to know, need you to know, that I see you. &nbsp;That I spent the better part of the last nights laying in bed praying comfort for you. &nbsp;Asking Father to supernaturally give you the sense that all is well with your girl. &nbsp;That His peace would cover you like the softest of blankets as you wonder what became of her. &nbsp;I wish now I'd followed others examples who have left signs at their child's finding sites, telling all who see it that this child has been found and is going to be forever loved. &nbsp;Entreating mother's and father's hearts to be at rest from the ache of the not-knowing. &nbsp;Wish we'd taken the time to find that doorway outside that furniture store, but we were overwhelmed with her needs and didn't. &nbsp;So let this be my sign, posted for all to see. &nbsp;We have found this girl. &nbsp;She is home now and is forever loved. &nbsp;And this won't replace your ache, but I pray it eases it some. &nbsp;She is home. &nbsp;She is loved. &nbsp;And you, as her bearer, will always be dear to us. &nbsp;Will always have a main part in her story. &nbsp;And we will tell her.<br />So on this day after, I honor you. &nbsp;I feel strange thanking you, when it is only terrible brokenness that forced your hand, but thank you. &nbsp;Father has brought her home and she is well-loved. &nbsp;Let that soak into your mama's heart. &nbsp;Happy birthday, birth mama.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;And totally unprepared for the bittersweet that was her birthday. &nbsp;This mama's heart has been burdened. &nbsp;May it always be so and may the burden lead me to prayer for her salvation and peace.<br /><br />Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-88080020217920901422015-02-10T06:53:00.002-05:002015-02-10T06:53:47.504-05:00three.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k9G83rpatLI/VNnxNqTqB5I/AAAAAAAADiQ/1AuKzvLvBjs/s1600/IMG_4227.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-k9G83rpatLI/VNnxNqTqB5I/AAAAAAAADiQ/1AuKzvLvBjs/s1600/IMG_4227.JPG" height="400" width="400" /></a></div><br />Dear Birth Mother, our baby turned three yesterday. &nbsp;Only we pretended it was Sunday because she can't read a calendar yet and it just worked better. &nbsp;I watched her opening presents, dressed in the pink satin dress we bought her on Shamian Island, big gold bow in her hair, teeny gold ballet slippers on her feet and I ached. &nbsp;This baby, we love her so, but her being here with us means you've suffered greatly, have sacrificed much. &nbsp;I know that now. &nbsp;Whatever circumstances led you to the choice you made to leave her, it must have ripped you up. &nbsp;And, so, these early days of February must be made of sadness and longing for you. &nbsp;I thought that while I watched our girl signing 'thank you' for her presents, thought it while she dug into her chocolate chocolate cake, thought it watching gift after gift involve her beloved emms; everyone knows her so well. &nbsp;Everyone except the one who conceived and grew her. &nbsp;She is beautiful, this baby. &nbsp;She is somber, smiling only when really tickled, laughing only when it's hard-won, but she is happy, still. &nbsp;I know that. &nbsp;She is adored by her sisters and brothers. &nbsp;They dote on her, laughing at her smallest antics. &nbsp;God has used her to break them and us for the orphan. &nbsp;That's the most beautiful gift she's given us. &nbsp;This baby, she is healthy. &nbsp;Her palate is repaired, she can eat anything (but won't because she's a stinker), she runs, she is learning to make sounds and using her hands to speak to us when her mouth fails her. &nbsp;She lacks for nothing, I promise that. &nbsp;I held her this morning and whispered to her of you. &nbsp;This baby we have birthed, you and I, she blesses me. &nbsp;Raising her is a relay race and your leg is over, but you ran it well. &nbsp;You carried her, labored for her, birthed her, loved her enough to let her go. &nbsp;You are valiant. &nbsp;Her foster mother ran her leg and it was brutal, but it made our girl strong, birthed in her a fighting spirit. &nbsp;Now it's my leg and I'm running hard, with this baby we share. &nbsp;But I want you to know, need you to know, that I see you. &nbsp;That I spent the better part of the last nights laying in bed praying comfort for you. &nbsp;Asking Father to supernaturally give you the sense that all is well with your girl. &nbsp;That His peace would cover you like the softest of blankets as you wonder what became of her. &nbsp;I wish now I'd followed others examples who have left signs at their child's finding sites, telling all who see it that this child has been found and is going to be forever loved. &nbsp;Entreating mother's and father's hearts to be at rest from the ache of the not-knowing. &nbsp;Wish we'd taken the time to find that doorway outside that furniture store, but we were overwhelmed with her needs and didn't. &nbsp;So let this be my sign, posted for all to see. &nbsp;We have found this girl. &nbsp;She is home now and is forever loved. &nbsp;And this won't replace your ache, but I pray it eases it some. &nbsp;She is home. &nbsp;She is loved. &nbsp;And you, as her bearer, will always be dear to us. &nbsp;Will always have a main part in her story. &nbsp;And we will tell her.<br />So on this day after, I honor you. &nbsp;I feel strange thanking you, when it is only terrible brokenness that forced your hand, but thank you. &nbsp;Father has brought her home and she is well-loved. &nbsp;Let that soak into your mama's heart. &nbsp;Happy birthday, birth mama.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;And totally unprepared for the bittersweet that was her birthday. &nbsp;This mama's heart has been burdened. &nbsp;May it always be so and may the burden lead me to prayer for her salvation and peace.<br /><br />Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-62750923674552306112014-11-19T14:43:00.001-05:002017-10-25T17:49:30.572-04:00six.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TfEsBlmF9VU/VGwHhZUOGZI/AAAAAAAADh0/_1LMSk-Ubfw/s1600/IMG_3885.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TfEsBlmF9VU/VGwHhZUOGZI/AAAAAAAADh0/_1LMSk-Ubfw/s1600/IMG_3885.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Six months today since we walked into the mint green room and waited. &nbsp;Six months since we spotted the workers coming through the door with two scared littles, one by hand and one in arms. &nbsp;I can't describe it, how it felt. &nbsp;It's like giving birth and finally seeing that sweet baby face, but different, because you have fought tooth and nail for this one. &nbsp;And have traveled across the world and filled out thousands of papers and paid tens of thousands of dollars and you have wondered all this time if it would actually lead to this. &nbsp;You've been pinching yourself since landing in this very foreign land, sure that something is going to happen to make it all fall apart. &nbsp;And then, there she is and it's you that's falling apart. &nbsp;Because she's orphan no longer, the minute they place her teeny, weak body in your arms and something in you dies, but it's good because it needed to. &nbsp;It's a bit of your selfishness and your innocence. &nbsp;This is what I learned six months ago today:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~You can't unknow what you know. &nbsp;We took off from Hong Kong and I wept silent tears watching out the window as a country that once terrified me became smaller and smaller. &nbsp;Wept knowing we were leaving millions behind who, like her, &nbsp;need food and love and forever.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~It's hard. &nbsp;They'll tell you that, but they'll sugar coat it in the same way women at a baby shower tell you you'll probably be tired some. &nbsp;The don't divulge that you'll be so exhausted you'll think you might die of it. &nbsp;Adoption is like that. &nbsp;There are days still I'm sure I'll die of it. &nbsp;But I'll happily go down with that ship for the sake of one less.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~It's good. &nbsp;They'll tell you that too, but they'll get it wrong. &nbsp;How can they describe what it's like, possibly? Just like how you can never find the right words to tell a new mom how great it'll be. &nbsp;Just can never find those words.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~It's the work we are called to. &nbsp;Not just me, all of us. &nbsp;Don't you doubt it. &nbsp;It's laid out in black and white, clear as a bell. &nbsp;This has hit me upside the head lately, since all our children have asked for a Chinese brother for Christmas and my China mamas are chewing on going back for one more. &nbsp;Just one more. &nbsp;And one asked, how do we know if it's right? and another said, it's adoption. &nbsp;If it's not a clear no, then it's a yes. &nbsp;If it's not a clear no then it's a yes. &nbsp;Kapow. &nbsp;See what I mean?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~It's a step forward and two steps backward. &nbsp;Maggie is walking all over the place. &nbsp;Awesome. &nbsp;But if a friend comes over who is a mommy, she'll choose her over me every time. &nbsp;Not awesome. &nbsp;She said "help" tonight. &nbsp;Awesome. &nbsp;But it took me 45 minutes to feed her enough to feel ok about it. &nbsp;Not awesome. One forward, two back. &nbsp;It's a strange dance and one that leaves my muscles aching most days, but she's just about the sweetest little partner, so I'll stay on that dance floor till I drop.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~It has wrecked us. &nbsp;All of us. &nbsp;The kids would rather fly to China and snatch up another sibling for Christmas than open a pile of packages under the tree. &nbsp;Except Lu, who, according to her pictorial list is really longing for a cheeseburger and a bag of balloons. &nbsp;And if it was between the new American Girl carriage with bells and working lights, it'd be a toughy for sure. &nbsp;But at the core of it, they have been wrecked and are longing to hear stories of children set down into forever families. &nbsp;It's part of their vernacular now. &nbsp;They play orphanage on their home days, wonder aloud if any of our friends will decide to adopt, set lofty goals for how many times they're going to adopt when they're grown up. &nbsp;This. &nbsp; Is. &nbsp;Beautiful. &nbsp;I would do this whole thing over just for the side benefit of growing kids whose hearts have been broken for the orphan.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~I get it now. &nbsp;This whole salvation thing. &nbsp;Get it with a clarity that has brought me to my knees more times than I can count in the last year. &nbsp;Maggie and I share a birth story. &nbsp;You do too. &nbsp;Redemption stories always start in the ugly. &nbsp;It just makes sense. &nbsp;Hers did and so did mine. &nbsp;The poverty, the dirt, the yuck, the whole thing. &nbsp;It's how it starts until a Father who longs to call us home enters in and invites us into his family and suddenly the ugly is made beautiful. &nbsp;And when Father says that he desires to set the orphans in families I think he just might be talking about you and me too. &nbsp;Redemption is his most precious work and it ought to be ours too. &nbsp;The redemption of orphans through adoption and fostering, the redemption of lost neighbors and family and coworkers. &nbsp;All of this life is meant to be working toward redemption and if we're not working too, then we are just standing in the way. &nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Adoption, dude, it's a killer. &nbsp;Yours and mine and hers. &nbsp;Literally a killer. &nbsp;There is a Jesus with nail scared hands that prove your worth, that pay tribute to your adoption. And if you haven't signed on yet, then you are still an orphan, despite an incredible Father who longs to make you his. &nbsp;Please, join this family. &nbsp;We are waiting for you.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This is me being real. &nbsp;Thankful for redemption in my own life, thankful for it in yours, blessed to my toes to be a part of Maggies. &nbsp;And pretty sure she would rather have had a family who came from a more temperate climate, but we will have to do.</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8a0--iqDFNQ/VGwHhPBgljI/AAAAAAAADhw/kvNFvzFCWNg/s1600/IMG_3916.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8a0--iqDFNQ/VGwHhPBgljI/AAAAAAAADhw/kvNFvzFCWNg/s1600/IMG_3916.JPG" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-47882777729291390642014-11-19T14:43:00.000-05:002014-11-19T14:43:31.361-05:00six.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TfEsBlmF9VU/VGwHhZUOGZI/AAAAAAAADh0/_1LMSk-Ubfw/s1600/IMG_3885.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TfEsBlmF9VU/VGwHhZUOGZI/AAAAAAAADh0/_1LMSk-Ubfw/s1600/IMG_3885.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Six months today since we walked into the mint green room and waited. &nbsp;Six months since we spotted the workers coming through the door with two scared littles, one by hand and one in arms. &nbsp;I can't describe it, how it felt. &nbsp;It's like giving birth and finally seeing that sweet baby face, but different, because you have fought tooth and nail for this one. &nbsp;And have traveled across the world and filled out thousands of papers and paid tens of thousands of dollars and you have wondered all this time if it would actually lead to this. &nbsp;You've been pinching yourself since landing in this very foreign land, sure that something is going to happen to make it all fall apart. &nbsp;And then, there she is and it's you that's falling apart. &nbsp;Because she's orphan no longer, the minute they place her teeny, weak body in your arms and something in you dies, but it's good because it needed to. &nbsp;It's a bit of your selfishness and your innocence. &nbsp;This is what I learned six months ago today:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~You can't unknow what you know. &nbsp;We took off from Hong Kong and I wept silent tears watching out the window as a country that once terrified me became smaller and smaller. &nbsp;Wept knowing we were leaving millions behind who, like her, &nbsp;need food and love and forever.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~It's hard. &nbsp;They'll tell you that, but they'll sugar coat it in the same way women at a baby shower tell you you'll probably be tired some. &nbsp;The don't divulge that you'll be so exhausted you'll think you might die of it. &nbsp;Adoption is like that. &nbsp;There are days still I'm sure I'll die of it. &nbsp;But I'll happily go down with that ship for the sake of one less.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~It's good. &nbsp;They'll tell you that too, but they'll get it wrong. &nbsp;How can they describe what it's like, possibly? Just like how you can never find the right words to tell a new mom how great it'll be. &nbsp;Just can never find those words.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~It's the work we are called to. &nbsp;Not just me, all of us. &nbsp;Don't you doubt it. &nbsp;It's laid out in black and white, clear as a bell. &nbsp;This has hit me upside the head lately, since all our children have asked for a Chinese brother for Christmas and my China mamas are chewing on going back for one more. &nbsp;Just one more. &nbsp;And one asked, how do we know if it's right? and another said, it's adoption. &nbsp;If it's not a clear no, then it's a yes. &nbsp;If it's not a clear no then it's a yes. &nbsp;Kapow. &nbsp;See what I mean?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~It's a step forward and two steps backward. &nbsp;Maggie is walking all over the place. &nbsp;Awesome. &nbsp;But if a friend comes over who is a mommy, she'll choose her over me every time. &nbsp;Not awesome. &nbsp;She said "help" tonight. &nbsp;Awesome. &nbsp;But it took me 45 minutes to feed her enough to feel ok about it. &nbsp;Not awesome. One forward, two back. &nbsp;It's a strange dance and one that leaves my muscles aching most days, but she's just about the sweetest little partner, so I'll stay on that dance floor till I drop.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~It has wrecked us. &nbsp;All of us. &nbsp;The kids would rather fly to China and snatch up another sibling for Christmas than open a pile of packages under the tree. &nbsp;Except Lu, who, according to her pictorial list is really longing for a cheeseburger and a bag of balloons. &nbsp;And if it was between the new American Girl carriage with bells and working lights, it'd be a toughy for sure. &nbsp;But at the core of it, they have been wrecked and are longing to hear stories of children set down into forever families. &nbsp;It's part of their vernacular now. &nbsp;They play orphanage on their home days, wonder aloud if any of our friends will decide to adopt, set lofty goals for how many times they're going to adopt when they're grown up. &nbsp;This. &nbsp; Is. &nbsp;Beautiful. &nbsp;I would do this whole thing over just for the side benefit of growing kids whose hearts have been broken for the orphan.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">~I get it now. &nbsp;This whole salvation thing. &nbsp;Get it with a clarity that has brought me to my knees more times than I can count in the last year. &nbsp;Maggie and I share a birth story. &nbsp;You do too. &nbsp;Redemption stories always start in the ugly. &nbsp;It just makes sense. &nbsp;Hers did and so did mine. &nbsp;The poverty, the dirt, the yuck, the whole thing. &nbsp;It's how it starts until a Father who longs to call us home enters in and invites us into his family and suddenly the ugly is made beautiful. &nbsp;And when Father says that he desires to set the orphans in families I think he just might be talking about you and me too. &nbsp;Redemption is his most precious work and it ought to be ours too. &nbsp;The redemption of orphans through adoption and fostering, the redemption of lost neighbors and family and coworkers. &nbsp;All of this life is meant to be working toward redemption and if we're not working too, then we are just standing in the way. &nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Adoption, dude, it's a killer. &nbsp;Yours and mine and hers. &nbsp;Literally a killer. &nbsp;There is a Jesus with nail scared hands that prove your worth, that pay tribute to your adoption. And if you haven't signed on yet, then you are still an orphan, despite an incredible Father who longs to make you his. &nbsp;Please, join this family. &nbsp;We are waiting for you.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This is me being real. &nbsp;Thankful for redemption in my own life, thankful for it in yours, blessed to my toes to be a part of Maggies. &nbsp;And pretty sure she would rather have had a family who came from a more temperate climate, but we will have to do.</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8a0--iqDFNQ/VGwHhPBgljI/AAAAAAAADhw/kvNFvzFCWNg/s1600/IMG_3916.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8a0--iqDFNQ/VGwHhPBgljI/AAAAAAAADhw/kvNFvzFCWNg/s1600/IMG_3916.JPG" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-74678352565290099432014-10-15T15:10:00.003-04:002017-10-25T17:49:30.600-04:00post.This life man, it's no joke. &nbsp;I have to keep remembering that Father never promised us a rose garden. &nbsp;Quite the opposite in fact. &nbsp;No matter how closely you're following: trouble. &nbsp;That's what he promised. &nbsp;Trouble and new mercies everyday. &nbsp;They're sisters, Trouble and Mercy. &nbsp;Never one without the other, thank goodness. &nbsp;We've felt them both in spades these last months. &nbsp;And I've been trying to keep my eye out for Mercy when Trouble is hanging off my back and driving me nuts. &nbsp;Trying just as hard to not keep a keen eye for Trouble when Mercy is making my day sweet because nothing is a Mercy buzz-kill like a Trouble sighting. <br />These days, they are so full. &nbsp;Hours are spent distracting Maggie with board books with one hand while I shoot food into her mouth with a syringe. &nbsp;She cries and I wonder for sec how I'll pay for this later, what weird attitudes about food she'll develop that will have to be therapized out in her teen years. &nbsp;But then I remember that she's too small to really know and remember and by the time she's old enough to begin collecting memories, she'll be healthy and the syringe will be a lost in the funhouse that is repressed memories. &nbsp;Until then, she's stubborn, but I'm stubborn-er and it's survival.<br />I have committed to myself that these lovely afternoons while she is napping and on which Lulu is often at school, depending on how much fight I woke up with in me, I will spend time at rest. &nbsp;Which often looks like napping, but really I'm laying down and talking with Father. &nbsp;We've had sweet times He and me, reading through my Bible study, chatting, sharing a cuppa. &nbsp;It's becoming a highlight. &nbsp;And we've worked a few things out:<br />~This work, it's Kingdom work. &nbsp;And, as such, it's going to come under attack. &nbsp;It's going to be ugly and expensive and it'll probably break all my nails, but it won't break my spirit because it's the work Father has called me to, so He's providing. &nbsp;In lovely and surprising ways.<br />~Where I've gone very wrong is self-medicating myself through these long, sometime brutal days with food. &nbsp;Have done that my whole life and am doing it still. &nbsp;And it's sin, plain and simple and it needs to stop. &nbsp;Because if I really believe that my body was created to be a temple and if I believe further that this work I'm doing (wife-ing, mothering, friend-ing, etc...) is my Kingdom job, then stuffing it full of junk, making it lethargic and slow, wearing a cloak of shame as the numbers rise, wearing a cloak of shame at all, it's the opposite. &nbsp;It's damaging to the work. &nbsp;And if I do the math, then anything that's hindering the work is sin. &nbsp;Black and white. &nbsp;Calling it anything else is the devil's kool-ade and that's one thing I'm not putting in my mouth.<br />~Women have this incredible capacity for circling the wagons. &nbsp;They make meals and text encouragement and offer to pick up kids. &nbsp;This circling? &nbsp;This linking arms? &nbsp;It might be amongst the most vital Kingdom work around. &nbsp;It matters big. And if you're making it your work then you are doing right.<br />This post...I've written it dozens of time in my head as I've muddled through the last year and now I'm saying it poorly, but perhaps being the most eloquent in the room is less important than being the most honest right now. &nbsp;And if so, then let me say it plainly: it's hard. &nbsp;And I've chosen wrong ways of coping often. &nbsp;But where there is Trouble, there is also Mercy and as long as they come packaged together it's all manageable. &nbsp;If you're in a Trouble place, court Mercy on bended knee. &nbsp;And while you're at it, invite Thankfulness and Humility to the party. &nbsp;If you're in a Mercy place, be vigilant for Trouble, but take Service's hand and go looking for someone who needs Father in flesh today. &nbsp;Always, always go forth and do this work with the most grace and brokenness you can muster up. &nbsp;It's precious, this work we're doing. &nbsp;It matters.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;Wondering what I can do to encourage you in your work today? &nbsp;And eager for Lu to hop off the bus in an hour since last I saw her she was screaming in her teacher's arms while reminding me of her grievances against Kindergarten. &nbsp;Namely, the boys being "incest" (obsessed) with fighting and her having to color inside the lines. &nbsp;Not telling what's going to hop off bus 22 later, but pretty sure I'm going to get an earful. &nbsp;Kindergarten is her Goliath, she reminded me this morning. &nbsp;Indeed it is. &nbsp;Food is mine. &nbsp;What's yours?Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-49712649955718810722014-10-15T15:10:00.002-04:002014-10-15T15:10:55.338-04:00post.This life man, it's no joke. &nbsp;I have to keep remembering that Father never promised us a rose garden. &nbsp;Quite the opposite in fact. &nbsp;No matter how closely you're following: trouble. &nbsp;That's what he promised. &nbsp;Trouble and new mercies everyday. &nbsp;They're sisters, Trouble and Mercy. &nbsp;Never one without the other, thank goodness. &nbsp;We've felt them both in spades these last months. &nbsp;And I've been trying to keep my eye out for Mercy when Trouble is hanging off my back and driving me nuts. &nbsp;Trying just as hard to not keep a keen eye for Trouble when Mercy is making my day sweet because nothing is a Mercy buzz-kill like a Trouble sighting. <br />These days, they are so full. &nbsp;Hours are spent distracting Maggie with board books with one hand while I shoot food into her mouth with a syringe. &nbsp;She cries and I wonder for sec how I'll pay for this later, what weird attitudes about food she'll develop that will have to be therapized out in her teen years. &nbsp;But then I remember that she's too small to really know and remember and by the time she's old enough to begin collecting memories, she'll be healthy and the syringe will be a lost in the funhouse that is repressed memories. &nbsp;Until then, she's stubborn, but I'm stubborn-er and it's survival.<br />I have committed to myself that these lovely afternoons while she is napping and on which Lulu is often at school, depending on how much fight I woke up with in me, I will spend time at rest. &nbsp;Which often looks like napping, but really I'm laying down and talking with Father. &nbsp;We've had sweet times He and me, reading through my Bible study, chatting, sharing a cuppa. &nbsp;It's becoming a highlight. &nbsp;And we've worked a few things out:<br />~This work, it's Kingdom work. &nbsp;And, as such, it's going to come under attack. &nbsp;It's going to be ugly and expensive and it'll probably break all my nails, but it won't break my spirit because it's the work Father has called me to, so He's providing. &nbsp;In lovely and surprising ways.<br />~Where I've gone very wrong is self-medicating myself through these long, sometime brutal days with food. &nbsp;Have done that my whole life and am doing it still. &nbsp;And it's sin, plain and simple and it needs to stop. &nbsp;Because if I really believe that my body was created to be a temple and if I believe further that this work I'm doing (wife-ing, mothering, friend-ing, etc...) is my Kingdom job, then stuffing it full of junk, making it lethargic and slow, wearing a cloak of shame as the numbers rise, wearing a cloak of shame at all, it's the opposite. &nbsp;It's damaging to the work. &nbsp;And if I do the math, then anything that's hindering the work is sin. &nbsp;Black and white. &nbsp;Calling it anything else is the devil's kool-ade and that's one thing I'm not putting in my mouth.<br />~Women have this incredible capacity for circling the wagons. &nbsp;They make meals and text encouragement and offer to pick up kids. &nbsp;This circling? &nbsp;This linking arms? &nbsp;It might be amongst the most vital Kingdom work around. &nbsp;It matters big. And if you're making it your work then you are doing right.<br />This post...I've written it dozens of time in my head as I've muddled through the last year and now I'm saying it poorly, but perhaps being the most eloquent in the room is less important than being the most honest right now. &nbsp;And if so, then let me say it plainly: it's hard. &nbsp;And I've chosen wrong ways of coping often. &nbsp;But where there is Trouble, there is also Mercy and as long as they come packaged together it's all manageable. &nbsp;If you're in a Trouble place, court Mercy on bended knee. &nbsp;And while you're at it, invite Thankfulness and Humility to the party. &nbsp;If you're in a Mercy place, be vigilant for Trouble, but take Service's hand and go looking for someone who needs Father in flesh today. &nbsp;Always, always go forth and do this work with the most grace and brokenness you can muster up. &nbsp;It's precious, this work we're doing. &nbsp;It matters.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;Wondering what I can do to encourage you in your work today? &nbsp;And eager for Lu to hop off the bus in an hour since last I saw her she was screaming in her teacher's arms while reminding me of her grievances against Kindergarten. &nbsp;Namely, the boys being "incest" (obsessed) with fighting and her having to color inside the lines. &nbsp;Not telling what's going to hop off bus 22 later, but pretty sure I'm going to get an earful. &nbsp;Kindergarten is her Goliath, she reminded me this morning. &nbsp;Indeed it is. &nbsp;Food is mine. &nbsp;What's yours?Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-43757406344855808592014-09-29T21:24:00.003-04:002017-10-25T17:49:30.626-04:00tomorrow.I washed and folded her new footie pjs, placing them in her Matilda bag, along with her favorite board book, a lovey and a new toy. &nbsp;There is a water bottle in there and formula and some almond milk. &nbsp;And now there are some tears as well. &nbsp;Because I've been so blessed through twelve years of parenting to never have to hand a baby over to a surgeon, but tomorrow I will. &nbsp;Will place her in capable hands, even if they aren't mine. &nbsp;Will whisper a prayer over her sweet forehead as my lips brush her brow. &nbsp;Will do what millions of much braver parents have done so often, and for much trickier reasons. <br />This baby, she has consumed my time these past four and a half months with feeding and holding and bonding. &nbsp;She has exhausted me, blessed me, thrilled me, humbled me. &nbsp;I have worked so hard. &nbsp;We all have. &nbsp;Hours of feeding a day, each meal lasting so long it melts into the next, dishwasher filled with baby spoons and formula stained water bottles. &nbsp;Her little tongue works so hard with every bite, every swallow, to push the food and drink past her cleft and down her throat. &nbsp;It's all so effort-full. &nbsp;And nursing her through a cold brought a new reality: food is only one facet of her difficulties. &nbsp;Poor baby had snot running out her mouth. &nbsp;And she sneezed in her nose, mouth locked tightly shut as it always is. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ebxVABVnnHI/VCoC9a7fnWI/AAAAAAAADhg/cEZQDOWxPt4/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ebxVABVnnHI/VCoC9a7fnWI/AAAAAAAADhg/cEZQDOWxPt4/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div><div>We thought about this beforehand. &nbsp;Wondered if we wanted to put a pic up this way, but until you see it, you can't know. &nbsp;This is what it looks like y'all. &nbsp;It looks like we're forcing her mouth open, but that's Tessie's hand on her forehead, patting it, not holding her down. &nbsp;She's happy to show it off. &nbsp;That cleft is the width of my finger at least and goes from her gum all the way to the back of her throat, splitting her uvula in half. &nbsp;When you look in her mouth, you are actually looking at the inside of her nose. &nbsp;This is why food ends up coming out her nose like some horrible play-doh toy. &nbsp;This is why she has had such struggles gaining weight, why it takes hours to feed her. &nbsp;</div><div>This baby, she is the bravest person I know. &nbsp;She has survived two mothers leaving her, survived nearly starving to death, an abrupt culture/language/family/home/food change. &nbsp;She is a warrior. &nbsp;Which is why, even though my stomach clenches at the thought of the pain she is going to endure, I am so happy that this part of her struggle will soon be over. &nbsp;Tomorrow her surgeon, who in God's providence is renown in his field, will use the muscles and tissues already there to create a palate for her. &nbsp;He will cover it all with skin he'll graft from the insides of her cheeks. &nbsp;He will ensure that she has the structure she needs to begin speaking and eating. &nbsp;We. &nbsp;Cannot. &nbsp;Wait.</div><div>Her cleft, which surely caused her birth mama to have to leave her outside a furniture store on a February day a couple years ago, I'm sort of in love with it. &nbsp;I fell in love with her cleft lip, wonky teef peeking through, mourning when they fixed it in China, even while knowing it needed to be so. &nbsp;She is fearfully and wonderfully made. &nbsp;We know that full well. &nbsp;And we are so thankful: that she is here, that she is well, that she is His.</div><div>This is me being real. &nbsp;Wondering if I can get a shot of Versed tomorrow morning to. &nbsp;Wake me up when it's over.</div>Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-10351555079966821552014-09-29T21:24:00.002-04:002014-09-29T21:24:21.638-04:00tomorrow.I washed and folded her new footie pjs, placing them in her Matilda bag, along with her favorite board book, a lovey and a new toy. &nbsp;There is a water bottle in there and formula and some almond milk. &nbsp;And now there are some tears as well. &nbsp;Because I've been so blessed through twelve years of parenting to never have to hand a baby over to a surgeon, but tomorrow I will. &nbsp;Will place her in capable hands, even if they aren't mine. &nbsp;Will whisper a prayer over her sweet forehead as my lips brush her brow. &nbsp;Will do what millions of much braver parents have done so often, and for much trickier reasons. <br />This baby, she has consumed my time these past four and a half months with feeding and holding and bonding. &nbsp;She has exhausted me, blessed me, thrilled me, humbled me. &nbsp;I have worked so hard. &nbsp;We all have. &nbsp;Hours of feeding a day, each meal lasting so long it melts into the next, dishwasher filled with baby spoons and formula stained water bottles. &nbsp;Her little tongue works so hard with every bite, every swallow, to push the food and drink past her cleft and down her throat. &nbsp;It's all so effort-full. &nbsp;And nursing her through a cold brought a new reality: food is only one facet of her difficulties. &nbsp;Poor baby had snot running out her mouth. &nbsp;And she sneezed in her nose, mouth locked tightly shut as it always is. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ebxVABVnnHI/VCoC9a7fnWI/AAAAAAAADhg/cEZQDOWxPt4/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ebxVABVnnHI/VCoC9a7fnWI/AAAAAAAADhg/cEZQDOWxPt4/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div><div>We thought about this beforehand. &nbsp;Wondered if we wanted to put a pic up this way, but until you see it, you can't know. &nbsp;This is what it looks like y'all. &nbsp;It looks like we're forcing her mouth open, but that's Tessie's hand on her forehead, patting it, not holding her down. &nbsp;She's happy to show it off. &nbsp;That cleft is the width of my finger at least and goes from her gum all the way to the back of her throat, splitting her uvula in half. &nbsp;When you look in her mouth, you are actually looking at the inside of her nose. &nbsp;This is why food ends up coming out her nose like some horrible play-doh toy. &nbsp;This is why she has had such struggles gaining weight, why it takes hours to feed her. &nbsp;</div><div>This baby, she is the bravest person I know. &nbsp;She has survived two mothers leaving her, survived nearly starving to death, an abrupt culture/language/family/home/food change. &nbsp;She is a warrior. &nbsp;Which is why, even though my stomach clenches at the thought of the pain she is going to endure, I am so happy that this part of her struggle will soon be over. &nbsp;Tomorrow her surgeon, who in God's providence is renown in his field, will use the muscles and tissues already there to create a palate for her. &nbsp;He will cover it all with skin he'll graft from the insides of her cheeks. &nbsp;He will ensure that she has the structure she needs to begin speaking and eating. &nbsp;We. &nbsp;Cannot. &nbsp;Wait.</div><div>Her cleft, which surely caused her birth mama to have to leave her outside a furniture store on a February day a couple years ago, I'm sort of in love with it. &nbsp;I fell in love with her cleft lip, wonky teef peeking through, mourning when they fixed it in China, even while knowing it needed to be so. &nbsp;She is fearfully and wonderfully made. &nbsp;We know that full well. &nbsp;And we are so thankful: that she is here, that she is well, that she is His.</div><div>This is me being real. &nbsp;Wondering if I can get a shot of Versed tomorrow morning to. &nbsp;Wake me up when it's over.</div>Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-32543187499883712852014-08-25T08:22:00.003-04:002017-10-25T17:49:30.665-04:00cry.She cried. &nbsp;Parents of adopted children will know what a milestone this is. &nbsp;Institutionalized children learn quickly, experience as their tutor, that crying gets you nowhere, that noise will net disdain before it nets touch, so they clam up. &nbsp;For three months I have laid her down at night and not heard a peep from her until the morning. &nbsp;With the other four, this would have been cause for celebration. &nbsp;But with Maggie, it has signaled that we still weren't safe enough for her, that this silence had not yet been unlearned. &nbsp;She lays in bed in the morning, eyes open, totally still, and waits for us to notice that she is awake. &nbsp;I have yearned for her to call out for me, to make some indication that she is awake and would like to be up. &nbsp;Silence. &nbsp;Until Sunday morning when I heard her little bunny hop come down the hallway. &nbsp;Laid in bed chewing on my lip, resigned to wait for her to come to me even if it took forever, listening to her funny crawl make it's way closer. &nbsp;It was a good sign. &nbsp;She is now comfortable enough to get herself out of bed in the morning. &nbsp;But she was still silent.<br />And then last night, our sleep was interrupted by the sad sound of her. &nbsp;She was inconsolable. &nbsp;It was the sweetest sound. &nbsp;She has learned that if she cries out, someone will hear and come. &nbsp;In fact, six someones heard and came. &nbsp;And there we all were in her room in the middle of the night, the Smalls concerned for this new noise as they rubbed the sleep from their eyes, my mama's heart growing and growing. &nbsp;So I rocked her back to sleep and whispered in a language she can only partially decode that I hear. &nbsp;That I will always come. &nbsp;Mama will always come. &nbsp;And I dreamed as I rocked of a day when I can teach her about a Father who will too, and with an absolute certainty and stability I can never offer. &nbsp;Not really. &nbsp;But until she understands that, I will happily stand in. &nbsp;Will rock her in the middle of the night, our tears meeting up on her cheeks as she settles in to the certainty of mama and will whisper a thousand thanks to the Father who ordained that she be born where she was and then brought home so we could be hers. &nbsp;My heart is full.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;And thinking it's a least a little crazy that a middle of the night, whole family awake, baby scream fest should be what is making me smile. &nbsp;But I never claimed to be anything but a little crazy, so you prolly knew what you were getting yourself into when you started reading.Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-54183640458155801672014-08-25T08:22:00.002-04:002014-08-25T08:22:59.265-04:00cry.She cried. &nbsp;Parents of adopted children will know what a milestone this is. &nbsp;Institutionalized children learn quickly, experience as their tutor, that crying gets you nowhere, that noise will net disdain before it nets touch, so they clam up. &nbsp;For three months I have laid her down at night and not heard a peep from her until the morning. &nbsp;With the other four, this would have been cause for celebration. &nbsp;But with Maggie, it has signaled that we still weren't safe enough for her, that this silence had not yet been unlearned. &nbsp;She lays in bed in the morning, eyes open, totally still, and waits for us to notice that she is awake. &nbsp;I have yearned for her to call out for me, to make some indication that she is awake and would like to be up. &nbsp;Silence. &nbsp;Until Sunday morning when I heard her little bunny hop come down the hallway. &nbsp;Laid in bed chewing on my lip, resigned to wait for her to come to me even if it took forever, listening to her funny crawl make it's way closer. &nbsp;It was a good sign. &nbsp;She is now comfortable enough to get herself out of bed in the morning. &nbsp;But she was still silent.<br />And then last night, our sleep was interrupted by the sad sound of her. &nbsp;She was inconsolable. &nbsp;It was the sweetest sound. &nbsp;She has learned that if she cries out, someone will hear and come. &nbsp;In fact, six someones heard and came. &nbsp;And there we all were in her room in the middle of the night, the Smalls concerned for this new noise as they rubbed the sleep from their eyes, my mama's heart growing and growing. &nbsp;So I rocked her back to sleep and whispered in a language she can only partially decode that I hear. &nbsp;That I will always come. &nbsp;Mama will always come. &nbsp;And I dreamed as I rocked of a day when I can teach her about a Father who will too, and with an absolute certainty and stability I can never offer. &nbsp;Not really. &nbsp;But until she understands that, I will happily stand in. &nbsp;Will rock her in the middle of the night, our tears meeting up on her cheeks as she settles in to the certainty of mama and will whisper a thousand thanks to the Father who ordained that she be born where she was and then brought home so we could be hers. &nbsp;My heart is full.<br />This is me being real. &nbsp;And thinking it's a least a little crazy that a middle of the night, whole family awake, baby scream fest should be what is making me smile. &nbsp;But I never claimed to be anything but a little crazy, so you prolly knew what you were getting yourself into when you started reading.Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6248714420857527574.post-13884595493060537532014-08-19T13:58:00.003-04:002017-10-25T17:49:30.691-04:00three.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P1CvpDu1WPs/U_NIDUUqyeI/AAAAAAAADgY/HHBbOAbIrZM/s1600/IMG_0218.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-P1CvpDu1WPs/U_NIDUUqyeI/AAAAAAAADgY/HHBbOAbIrZM/s1600/IMG_0218.JPG" height="400" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZWC7VXkn--Y/U_NIGTd5yyI/AAAAAAAADg8/tTjoq-Y10pY/s1600/IMG_3885.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZWC7VXkn--Y/U_NIGTd5yyI/AAAAAAAADg8/tTjoq-Y10pY/s1600/IMG_3885.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RGYtRbAEY70/U_NIG_-gWoI/AAAAAAAADhA/DWUUDV5jf34/s1600/IMG_3887.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RGYtRbAEY70/U_NIG_-gWoI/AAAAAAAADhA/DWUUDV5jf34/s1600/IMG_3887.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div><br />Three months ago today they placed her in my arms while we wept and wondered, my fingers beginning to learn her bony, small body from that first touch. &nbsp;Her eyes were empty, moving only to track those around her warily, wondering what to expect of these strangers who were stealing her away. &nbsp;She watched us out of the teeny corners of her eyes, while she lay limp in our arms. &nbsp; There are things you don't think when you are in the moment. &nbsp;In the moment you are only surviving...learning how to feed, hold, settle. &nbsp;It's later when emerging personality gives glimpses of her past that you wonder what went before. &nbsp;Her fighting spirit bears testimony to the strength and stubbornness she surely needed to last as long as she did. &nbsp;And the other day when she peed on the floor and looked at me with terror in her black eyes, waiting for my reaction, her past was there on the surface, written on her face. &nbsp;I held that inconsolable baby for the better part of an hour, pee over both of us, reassuring her that all was well. &nbsp;That mama loves her deep and will forever. &nbsp;This is the hard work of picking up where someone else left off. &nbsp;Of teaching grace where lessons of punishment have been started.<br />So how are we doing three months in? &nbsp;Depends on the minute, the second. &nbsp;At our core we are good. Really good. &nbsp;This girl is being knitted right in with Father's perfect stitches. &nbsp;She is learning sign language and just last week connected that these signs we are using over and over mean something. &nbsp;She and I, we communicated for the first time last week when she used the sign for eat and then was asked, are you hungry? &nbsp;Her little nod nearly made me dance. &nbsp;She is all over this house with her stiff legged jaunt, hanging on to her walker wagon. &nbsp;Steps are coming, I can feel it. &nbsp;She eats. &nbsp;That's all. &nbsp;She eats. &nbsp;Never have I been so happy to see a toddler with her mouth full. &nbsp;Never have I had to work so hard to make it thus. <br />Last week I was so empty. &nbsp;Just totally depleted. &nbsp;And Father knew that, which is why we spent Friday on mystery trips, starting with Craigs Cruisers and breakfast with the cousins and leading into Dutch Village with Nana and Aunt Veti and ending with dinner with Daddy and back to school shopping. &nbsp;That day was just what I needed. &nbsp;To have fun with my Smalls. &nbsp;To see Maggie on the train ride with her sibs, laughing and trying to work the lever. &nbsp;To see Tess walking a goat, to break the rules and bump Grant and Peter on their go-carts, to watch Lucy, with her measly 21 tickets, be given all of Peter's out of sheer grace so she could get what she wanted from that stupid, stupid prize counter. &nbsp;And Maggie spent the better part of that day in Nana and Aunt Veti's arms, something I was aching for. &nbsp;Three months it's been since someone outside our family has held her. &nbsp;Three months she's spent her days perched on my hip, me doing everything with one hand, thankful for her small presence there, yet so ready to have a break from that for a bit. &nbsp;I got that last Friday. &nbsp;Because she is learning that they are forever too, this Nana and these uncles and aunts and cousins. <br />She learned to give hugs. &nbsp;Oh my soul, it's the sweetest thing. &nbsp;And if she gives to one, she gives to all, her bird arms reaching out, teeny hands fluttering against your back as she pats you like a good dog. &nbsp;She understand everything. &nbsp;Seriously, everything. &nbsp;Three months only of hearing English and she understands it all. &nbsp;And while communicating it, without words, has been a challenge, understanding it is the bigger battle and it's been fought. <br />It's hard, this work. &nbsp;I still ache to hear my name from her lips. &nbsp;I hurt every single morning when she lays in her bed until someone discovers she's awake and picks her up, long for the day that she lets us know with her words or her body that she wants out. &nbsp;Long for the day she just gets out. &nbsp;But time is a teacher and it's taught her over two and a half years that no one comes when you cry out, so you stop doing it. &nbsp;She would lay in her bed until Kingdom come if we let her, if her siblings didn't wake up every morning still and rush to check on her first thing. &nbsp;She no longer hoards food in her mouth. &nbsp;That is a beautiful thing. &nbsp;She has figured out that there is an abundance, that she won't be denied. &nbsp;And she has figured out how to ask for it. &nbsp;Which is why she spends the better part of each day in her booster on the counter, begin shown choice after choice. &nbsp;She wants to eat all the time and we are happy to oblige for now. &nbsp;Maggie is learning that things taken away can be given back. &nbsp;Her shoes, which have been slept in countless times are on the kitchen counter waiting for her as I type. &nbsp;Taking them off was easy peasy last night. &nbsp;She knows they'll be there in the morning for her. &nbsp;Stripping her of her shoes would have led to a tantrum a month ago. &nbsp;Progress in adoption, I'm learning, is measured in small doses. &nbsp;Measured in small doses, but celebrated in large ones. &nbsp;At least that's how we're playing the game.<br />It's hard, not going to lie to you. &nbsp;Dan and I are stepping out tonight for our first dinner alone since before we left for China. &nbsp;I've been tied up in knots all day thinking of leaving Maggie, but needing it so badly. &nbsp;Nana and Aunt Veti will come and hold her and distract her and we'll be home in time to do our bedtime routine together. &nbsp;The Smalls will remind her that she hasn't been left, will remind her by constantly being in her face and touching her as they have for the last. &nbsp;Three. &nbsp;Months. &nbsp;Straight. &nbsp;Y'all, it never stops. <br />So amidst the mountains of laundry and the work of settling a new member into our family, amidst wallpaper being torn down and replaced and fool's errands to find a throttle cable for Peter's mini bike, amidst the daily mess, both physical and emotional, of becoming us, we are blessed beyond measure. &nbsp;It is so much harder, so much better, so much sweeter, so much everything than I imagined. &nbsp;And don't you look at the many many moving parts that had to align just so for HER to land HERE and try to tell me there isn't a Father who desires to set the orphan in families. &nbsp;Don't even try, because these ears are closed to that kind of bunk and even though I'm too tired to formulate a proper argument with citations and such, I do know this: that we cannot claim to be following if we are unwilling to be lead to hard places. &nbsp;<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6PR70SD48s8/U_NICv10DDI/AAAAAAAADgU/UWM82mvWSm8/s1600/IMG_0270.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6PR70SD48s8/U_NICv10DDI/AAAAAAAADgU/UWM82mvWSm8/s1600/IMG_0270.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DgTcoagrXvI/U_NIDku3eOI/AAAAAAAADgg/RRk1YpqPF7Y/s1600/IMG_3486.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DgTcoagrXvI/U_NIDku3eOI/AAAAAAAADgg/RRk1YpqPF7Y/s1600/IMG_3486.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DVxV9K3ZCqU/U_NIErczMrI/AAAAAAAADgs/xmy1rpGc4Ls/s1600/IMG_3489.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DVxV9K3ZCqU/U_NIErczMrI/AAAAAAAADgs/xmy1rpGc4Ls/s1600/IMG_3489.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></div>This is me being real. &nbsp;Thankful and overwhelmed with love and a couple hundred things all mixed up (I mean, really...look at that face!). &nbsp;And wondering what hard place are you being called to today?Vos Familyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084950887357130925noreply@blogger.com2